Category: misconceptions

Things I Learned about Marking, Students Collaborating, Diagnostic Questions, and Students’ Reasoning (Notes from the Maths TeachMeet in Kuala Lumpur)

The maths TeachMeet in I attended today at Alice Smith School in Kuala Lumpur was inspiring. I attended sessions about marking (by Denise Benson from Beacon House School), a collaborative KS3 scheme of work (Phil Welch from Alice Smith School), things learned from Craig Barton (John Cartwright from Garden International School), and ways to deepen students’ reasoning  talk (Simone Dixon from Tanglin Trust School).

I also led a workshop about career progression for teachers (materials here). One of the tips I give is about reflective journaling. I recommend starting a blog, for instance. Someone asked me about my own blog and I realise I should probably practice what I preach and write some posts. A good first goal would be once a month since I’m currently writing a lot less than that.

Smart Marking (by Denise Benson from Beacon House School)

My main takeaways were twofold, one of which is not even about marking. First, exit tickets are the way Denise marks because it provides her with feedback for the planning and teaching of the next lesson and because it’s immediately useful to the student as well to see if they understood the lesson. I was struck that it would make them easier to have a little pre-printed form that they use and then the next lesson they could stick it in their book (if I deem that it would be useful for them to keep them). The scribbles below are a mock-up from my notes; hope you can read them!

Secondly, teachers complain about marking because they don’t have time. But actually teachers give up lots of time for lots of things, for example, reading teaching blogs, writing worksheets, or going to a TeachMeet on a Saturday. The problem with marking is that it’s not always a good use of time. Denise was saying that we should find a way to make it quicker and worth the time it takes.

She left us with a brilliant question.

A collaborative KS3 scheme of work (Phil Welch from Alice Smith School)

We had some good background discussion first about what KS3 looks like in each of our schools (using a Padlet). But I shall skip forward to the thing that struck me: Phil has capitalised on a timetabling quirk in that the whole of year 7 has maths at the same time. Thus they can have one week a term in which the students do a collaborative project in mixed groups. Also, the school has pairs of big classrooms with sliding doors between so they can squish a whole year group in for introduction or closing sessions. They also have a lot of breakout/corridor space for groups to work on projects. Really, this is such a great idea that works thanks in part to the brilliant facilities they have at Alice Smith School. Collaborative projects would still work in my school but would be a bit messier.

Highlights of the things learned from Craig Barton (John Cartwright from Garden International School) Continue reading “Things I Learned about Marking, Students Collaborating, Diagnostic Questions, and Students’ Reasoning (Notes from the Maths TeachMeet in Kuala Lumpur)”

Five Superb Maths Lesson Ideas #2

1. Pythagoras and Trigonometry Revision Activity

I love activities that get students out of their seats. This task (designed by Steel1989) asks students to distinguish between Pythagoras and trig questions. Yet instead of a worksheet, the questions are designed to be printed out and stuck around the room on sheets of paper. Students get one to work on, answer it (in their book or on a mini whiteboard) and then write the answer on the back of the sheet. Then they put the sheet back up on the wall. When another student answers the same question, they check their answer with the one already written there. If the answers differ, they students need to talk to each other to discover which is correct.

pythagoras or trig

2. Polygraph Desmos Activity

Oh, wow, I’ve discovered a great one here and maybe you’ve heard the hype already. Desmos has introduced a teacher section that allows you to run class-side activities. I tired out the Polygraph: Lines activity with one of my classes. Have a look at the teacher guidance to learn more. Only you as the teacher needs to create an account; you give students a code to join the game. One student chooses a linear graph and their assigned partner has to ask yes/no questions to guess which graph it is. Meanwhile, as a teacher you can see all the questions and answer being given, who has been successful with the task (or not). I called one of my students over when I saw that she had typed “Does your graph go through the point y = 2x?”. I was able to clear up a misconception I didn’t even know she had until then.

The student’s view is shown in the screenshot below. Desmos is adding to the collection of class activities and I’m sure I’ll use them all in time!

polygraph lines.PNG

3. Tree Diagrams Challenge

A few of my year 11 students are ready to take on the challenge of those nasty tree diagrams questions that lead to quadratics. Fortunately, tonycarter45 has created this lovely sheet with probability extension questions. The sheet includes the answers.

Tony (who works at my school) has produced quite a few nice worksheets and you can see them on TES Resources. He specialises in thought-provoking questions. I like that his investigative worksheets often remove scaffolding parts as the questions progress.

tree diagrams

 

4. Two is the Magic Number worksheets

Three activities called “Two is the Magic Number” from Just Maths. Each one is a collection of cards solving a short problem, only two of which are done correctly. The rest show common errors and misconceptions. The cards generally cover number and algebra skills such as simplifying terms, using indices, and calculating with fractions. Depending on what you have taught your students, there may be a few topics that they haven’t learned, so check first. (My bottom set year 8 need to practice like terms, but they can’t do a conversion between meters squared and millimeters squared.) These sheets are great for checking students’ misconceptions.

two-is-the-magic-number-1

5. IB DP Maths Resource Collection

I have a former colleague, Andrew Clarke, who is a brilliant resource collector. He has now started three curated collections of maths teaching ideas for IB teachers. The one that is most relevant to me is Teaching Diploma Program Mathematics. He has collected all kinds of teaching ideas for Maths HL, SL, and Studies SL. One item that caught my eye is an investigation about using calculus to describe concavity, which is one topic I have never found a good way of introducing.

Andrew’s other two sites may interest you: Teaching MYP Maths and Teaching PYP Mathematics.

What superb lesson resources have you seen or used recently? Comment below or tweet me @mathsfeedback.