Secondary maths teaching resources and reflections
Isosceles Triangles and Angle Filtering ResourcesDownload My year 11s are really struggling with 'seeing' angles. Even in cases where there are only two or three 'steps' to solving a problem. I've found a lot of resources out there are aimed at the beginning stages of using angle reasons, and plenty of exam-style questions bringing loads … Continue reading Building Up Angle Reasoning
Circles Completion Table ResourceDownload I love a completion table. I love a completion table where there's some variation thrown in too. This is a completion table for circles I made for my year 12s. Desmos demo file: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/70qca6udgi But I've used this differently than I usually would. Our school has two year 12 A Level … Continue reading Circles Completion Table
Area's Just Times ResourcesDownload We know that misconceptions don't actually leave pupil's heads, even when corrected. They're notoriously sticky, and require the same, if not more, practice in correcting/avoiding them than it takes to embed them in the first place. For my year 10s, 'perimeter's add, area's times' has been stickier than a post-it. And … Continue reading “Area’s Just Times”
I love writing questions. It's fascinating to try and structure an activity or a task to elicit a train of thought that builds to understanding. When I do it, I learn more about the underlying structure of the maths as well as the pedagogical building blocks to get there. It's complex, subtle and bloody difficult … Continue reading Task Writing – Unintended Consequences
Product of Primes: Extending and Deepening Understanding ResourcesDownload In moving schools, there's often also a move in curriculum. Mostly, this affects the sequencing of content, and as such, the links you emphasise while teaching. (I could talk about curriculum sequencing in maths all day - I find it fascinating.) This has meant that while I've … Continue reading Product of Primes: Extending and Deepening Understanding
Variable Acceleration Card SortDownload I've noticed a common thread throughout mechanics, whereby students' attention to detail on substitution and solving is exceptional, but there's an assumption that they should just be able to assign values to variables simply and without context. This has been the case across multiple areas: constant acceleration formulae; velocity/time graphs; projectiles. … Continue reading Reasoning With Variable Acceleration
In my previous post I discussed distributivity and how the algebra tile representation dictated my sequencing of examples and tasks for students. In this post I want to share some approaches and tasks I used to move from concrete to pictorial. (Abstract can wait.) Distributivity Mixed Practice TasksDownload ‘Simple’ mathematics has a lot going on … Continue reading Distributivity Mixed Practice
In this post, I’m going to discuss a particular lesson on using algebra tiles for distributivity and the changes I’ve made to my planning process to better enable my use of manipulatives in the classroom. I’ll then also discuss the specific tasks I used and some of the reasons why I wrote the task in … Continue reading Distributivity with Algebra Tiles and Area Models
Previous post: Transformations of Functions: Translations In the post linked above I described the change in how I've taught translations of functions with my year 11s and 12s by focusing on moving the coordinate plane rather than translating the function itself. This post continues that idea by looking at reflections. I find 'reflections' a bit … Continue reading Transformations of Functions: y=-f(x) and y=f(-x)
Reasoning With Functions and Translations of GraphsDownload Thinking about functions without algebra can be a huge leap for year 12s. This post outlines some bits I've given mine to try and encourage understanding and depth of thought as to how a function relates to the coordinate plane rather than to algebra, and then the subsequent … Continue reading Transformations of Functions: Translation
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