OK, so yesterday it was MathsConf 15. I’ve got loads of takeaways. The first session I went to was Jo Morgan’s session on indices. It was phenomenal. Jo puts a lot of work and research into her sessions and it really shows. If you ever get to see her do an ‘In Depth’ presentation, do.… Read More »
Download the word file here This one was hard. I spent ages rearranging questions and looking at what should be added. Specifically, I had a massive dilemma when it came to introducing fractions. I was trying to point out the ways in which simplifying fractions and simplifying ratio were similar, but I’m not sure that… Read More »
Download the word file here My thinking A question to start Reversing the terms. Does balancing still work? A take-away. How does this effect our balance. Does reversing the terms still lead us to the same answer Increasing the constant by one. What happens? Also: a decimal answer. We can have a negative answer Divide… Read More »
I talked a little about the idea for Maths spelling-type tests here. I’ve used them this year, but I’m not really sure how effective they’ve been. I’m not sure pupils have fully bought into the idea of using learnt facts. The other thing I noticed is that I hadn’t really presented them in a way… Read More »
A student sent me this. I’ve started a ‘bad maths’ category. Does showing students this kind of stuff and asking for them to be aware/send examples to you make them more mathematically aware?
Lack of updates. Sorry. Crunch time (plus exciting personal stuff). I will get on doing some things in a few weeks. PowerPoints to be done. More variation stuff to work on. More timed questions to set up. In the meantime: These are GREAT. I teach a lower attainment year 11 and they often struggle to… Read More »
I know I’d said I’d do simplifying a ratio first but I got distracted. PDF Here | Editable excel file here
Another ‘vary and twist’. This time on inverse proportion. Download it here. I have added a section at the top making explicit that students should make an expectation of the answer before working it out, as I think this is where the power of these types of activity come from. My thinking A question to… Read More »
I’m going to call these Vary and Twist. Section A is some variation practice. Here’s my thinking behind the variations: Simple example Context change, numbers stay the same OK. Now double what we require. answer doubles Amount needed triples, answer triples. Also 6 x first one We’ve doubled the number of pens in the first… Read More »
I’ve been using Mr Barton’s SSDD Problems with my year 11 class. I think they’re really good. They do a really good job of making students pick out what they need to do. Here’s a great one. This is great because it makes pupils read the question. It was fantastic for revision because we got… Read More »