reflectivemathsteacher's posterous

reflectivemathsteacher's posterous

Dave Gale  //  Hi. I'm a maths AST and I'm trying to: be more reflective about my teaching and use less paper. That's what this blog is for.
If you're a Tweeter, send me a tweet @reflectivemaths

 
May 22 / 4:59pm

Against 'Answer Getting'

Against_answer_getting_tweet

While browsing Twitter, I came across this, tweeted by David Wees (@davidwees).

Which is a link to this video by Phil Daro:
 

(You can download it or watch online.) And obviously, I'd encourage you to go and watch it (18 minutes long).

It essentially talks about how American teachers are concerned with teaching students how to get the answer but Japanese teachers are concerned with seeing what mathematics can be taught by using the problem as a vehicle.
There are a number of points I like:
  1. Answers are part of the process, they are not the product. The product is the student's mathematical knowledge and know-how. (The 'correctness' of answers is also part of the process.)
  2. 4 minutes in "Jen discovered an approach that doesn't work. Jen, explain your discovery to the class." "Does everyone understand Jen's discovery? Now let's all figure out why it didn't work."
  3. Using FOIL to expand double brackets is just adding something to the curriculum when you could just teach the distributive law. The distributive law still works for trinomials etc.
  4. Whenever you teach a 'trick' to help get the right answer, you are adding things to the curriculum (ie more things to learn) and you're avoiding teaching actual maths.

Lots to think about!
 
May 22 / 4:22pm

Against 'Answer Getting'

Against_answer_getting_tweet

While browsing Twitter, I came across this, tweeted by David Wees (@davidwees).

Which is a link to this video by Phil Daro:
 

(You can download it or watch online.) And obviously, I'd encourage you to go and watch it (18 minutes long).

It essentially talks about how American teachers are concerned with teaching students how to get the answer but Japanese teachers are concerned with seeing what mathematics can be taught by using the problem as a vehicle.
There are a number of points I like:
  1. Answers are part of the process, they are not the product. The product is the student's mathematical knowledge and know-how. (The 'correctness' of answers is also part of the process.)
  2. 4 minutes in "Jen discovered an approach that doesn't work. Jen, explain your discovery to the class." "Does everyone understand Jen's discovery? Now let's all figure out why it didn't work."
  3. Using FOIL to expand double brackets is just adding something to the curriculum when you could just teach the distributive law. The distributive law still works for trinomials etc.
  4. Whenever you teach a 'trick' to help get the right answer, you are adding things to the curriculum (ie more things to learn) and you're avoiding teaching actual maths.

Lots to think about!
 
May 22 / 2:19pm

Coin Snatching Tutor Time Activity

Here's a nice little activity that's easy to set up and is very engaging.

You can use whatever coins people have to hand but a bag of 2p coins might be handy to have around.

There are two records to go for (using 10p coins):

Maximum number caught (dropping allowed) is currently 328

or

Maximum number caught cleanly (ie no dropping allowed) is 100

 

 
May 22 / 10:18am

British Citizen Tests

As the Jubilee is coming up soon, I've been looking around for some good Citizenship tests. 
Here are some links to the best British Citizenship tests I found. I've put them here as you might like to use in your tutor times.

BBC News British Citizenship Test
This is a multiple choice quiz from 2005 but I'm pretty sure it's still relevant. I got a 7 out of 15.

Life in the United Kingdom
Again, multiple choice with 24 questions. Apparently this is the Official Practice Citizenship Test. I didn't do too well on this one either...
Citizenship_fail
Life in the UK Test
This is a giant of a test. There are 55 tests each one with 24 questions. You need 75% to pass any of them and these will keep you busy for ages!
I haven't tried them but I've had a look and they are all suitable

Prepare UK Test
Much the same as previous ones really. I actually passed this one - it would seem that practise makes you better!
Citizenship_pass
 
May 15 / 11:54am

Starter Puzzle

Term_5_potw5

Here's something you might like to use as a little puzzle at some point. Maybe just to fill up some time.

The task is to join the red block to the other red one, green to green, blue to blue.

The lines mustn't cross, pass through the coloured blocks or go outside the rectangle.
The lines do not have to be straight.
 
May 10 / 9:05pm

Towards Independent Learning

Having been inspired by Jim Smith (@thelazyteacher) at #TMClevedon last week, I've been thinking about how much we do for our students and, specifically the things we do for them that they really are (or should be) capable of doing themselves. This is also a little like Dan Meyer's less helpful principal.

So, I've decided that I intend not to tell students the page numbers any more when we're doing book work. They know what a contents page is right? They know to go back and look again if the first try wasn't the right page. Surely? If not, I'm happy to be the one that teaches them that.

It's only a small step but I believe it's in the right direction.
 
May 10 / 8:58pm

Probability - life or death question

Barrel_adjacent_bullets

Here's a nice little problem:

You're playing a game of Russian roulette with a six shooter. You know there are two bullets in adjacent chambers and the other four are empty.

Your opponent has just spun and shot at his own head. He survived and now it's your turn.

Do you:

1) Re-spin and shoot

2) Just shoot

--------------------
How different is it if you know the bullets are not adjacent?

How different is it if you don't know whether the bullets are adjacent or not?
 
May 8 / 9:43am

Eco packaging

Here's the packaging for a coffee refill pack which caught my attention because of the large percentage claim on the front. It's claiming that this pack uses 97% less packaging (by weight) than their 200 and 100 g jars. My questions:
Which is it: 200g jar or 100g jar? Surely they're not both the same weight. Is weight the best measure of packaging? It might be that glass is easier and more efficient to recycle and so weight is not the primary concern. It's also possible that the material used in the refill is easier to recycle. I don't know the answer to these, but I do wonder....

Photo

 
May 6 / 5:35pm

A great sign

I know it's not Maths or teaching related but I do like this sign.

Photo

 
May 3 / 9:16pm

#TMClevedon

Here are some of my (very) selective highlights from #TMClevedon
This is mainly to remind myself of all the excellent things I saw/heard but I thought this list may be of use to others too:

Making power point useful (Andy Hutt)
gave a link to images:

When presenting with power point, if you type a number, it will go to that slide.

25 ways to introduce Learning Objectives (David Didau)
Post learning objectives as a Facebook status
Add the word 'because' to the end
Put the objective in a different language
Use a sign making website to make it more visually appealing

Tutor Time Sorted (Kat Crocker)
Balancing on Things

Learning on the Loo (Sally Thorne)
Putting teaching tips on the walls in the (staff) toilets

Using Aurasma in class (Kelda Richards)
Making your posters come alive with the aurasma app - a bit like Harry Potter pictures.
(This sounds very cool but I'll need to do a little more looking into it)

Solo Taxonomy (David Didau)
Worth looking into more but not enough time to type about it in this post

App-licable (Gavin Smart)
Educreations app - turns your iPad into a portable interactive whiteboard
My Study Plan - possibly useful for students to input their exams and plan their revision
Word Shake - like boggle
Socrative

Afl and Google Docs (James Michie)
Just reconfirming some of the things I've been thinking about using Google Docs. I've played with the collaborative approach to them but might look at the AfL side a little more now

Help I'm stuck (Jim Smith)
Don't end your introduction by saying 'If you get stuck, I'll come and help you'
If they say they're stuck, try:
Ok, well do something else then
If I gave you £1000000 to become unstuck, what would you do
Imagine what would someone who wasn't stuck do
What did you do last time you were stuck
Ok, what have you forgotten to do
Find someone to help you (me explaining it once clearly didn't help)
The Billy Ocean approach

Thanks very much Mark for an amazing event!