This Year 6 SATS question from the 2019 paper 2 (Adam’s rectangle) has appeared in the press and on social media and has been commented on extensively because of its perceived level of difficulty and because of the wording that is used.
I have lots of important piece of classroom equipment. At the moment I am enjoying using my visualiser.
The Hardware/Software
Despite having been a member of the Association for Teachers of Mathematics and The Mathematical Association for more than 20 years, this Easter was the first time I have attended a joint ATM/MA conference. It isn’t something to do lightly, given that it is four days over the Easter holidays and costs (at the advanced-booking rate for members) £500, although there are considerable discounts for trainee teachers.
I thought it was excellent and really hope to be able to go again in future.
A group of maths HoDs asked me for some thoughts on marking. The NCETM already have an excellent marking policy in place. Surprisingly, there has been very little research into the impact of marking on teaching and learning so my comments are based only on experience and professional judgement. This is a sensitive subject for me but here goes…
I was recently on a course day away from school and during a coffee break I was bored. I had nothing to do and the others on my table were getting a cup of coffee, so I had no-one to talk to.
One of the pads of paper on the table was from a different organisation (nothing to do with the course I was on) and because I had nothing else to do I started thinking about the logo:
One of the great things about working with the Cambridge Maths Hub is that you get to meet and learn from lots of talented people. It is therefore a real delight when some of those colleagues in the Hub are recognised nationally for their excellent work.
It is often noted that in certain subjects it is common for teachers to use elements of their subject in their personal and leisure activities. For example, I know English teachers who write poetry, music teachers who regularly perform in concerts and write music, PE teachers who play for teams and drama teachers who also act and direct. In my school there is a display titled “The Art of the Art Teachers”; all of the members of the art department are practising artists as well as being teachers.
So, what about maths teachers? What do (or could) we do?
If you are new to Desmos you might want to read my earlier blog Desmos – the basics first.
This blog will explore ways to use Desmos (www.desmos.com) to teach transformations of graphs at GCSE and at A-level mathematics. This isn’t a lesson plan but the ideas here could easily be used in lessons; there are a number of different alternatives (such as using sliders, relating graphs to tables and using function notation) that may be appropriate for different classes or at different levels. I have written the things I suggest saying to the class in the form of instructions. There are alternatives that will work as well, so these are merely suggestions.
Two anecdotes to begin with:
Teaching is a series of decision. The US researcher and teacher Deborah Loewenberg Ball found that in one 88-second section of one of her lessons she had to decide how to respond on 20 occasions (1). That’s a decision every four and a half seconds.
My colleague Cordelia wrote earlier in the term [ https://cambridgemathshub.org/observing-maths-lesson ] about what senior managers should look for when observing a mathematics lesson. This blog explores some of the things trainee teachers could do during their observations in their training year. This might also be of use to others: those who are considering teaching as a career, those returning to teaching after time away and those preparing to teach a different subject from their usual one.