Tricks and Tips 1: HCF. I recently presented a workshop at the National Mathematics Teacher Conference (#mathsconf2015) entitled 'Tricks and Tips: Clever Methods for Explaining Mathematical Concepts'. This post summarises the content of that workshop for those who were unable to attend. I have quite a lot to cover so I expect I'll need to write three or four blog posts. In this one I'm going to explain the rationale for the workshop and describe alternative methods for finding a Highest Common Factor. In subsequent posts I'll cover sequences, linear graphs, surds, quadratics, compound measures and a few more bits and pieces. Workshop aim How do you find the Highest Common Factor of two numbers? What determines the way we choose the explain things? Most teachers establish teaching habits during their training and NQT year. One of the few things I remember about GCSE maths was that I solved equations by 'moving terms over the equals sign' (the 'magic portal method'). 1.
There's no harm in the listing method. 2. Desmos | Beautiful, Free Math. Singapore Math Online Practice and Free Worksheets. Gmail - Free Storage and Email from Google. Online Maths Assessment and Worksheets. Maths Website. What do a teacher and entrepreneur have in common? “Those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach” The old adage above couldn’t be further from the truth in my opinion.
I like to say “those who can, have unrelenting energy, buckets full of passion, an ability to be masterful communicators and work in sometimes tough conditions, teach” And so begins my thinking that there may be much more in common in the art of teaching and entrepreneurship than may meet the eye. Here are but a few of the traits I believe successful teachers and entrepreneurs share: The art of selling: What’s the situation at the front of a class? A great teacher has the passion, character and ability to do this – to interest those pupils and inspire them into their subject and world.
Management and team building: A great teacher effectively has a team of 30 people in front of them. Understanding and empathy: A great teacher knows their students so well – this doesn’t mean they know every single intimidate detail about their lives. Knowing what the customer wants: Mathspace :: Teachers. How we teach addition & subtraction of negative numbers | Mr Reddy Maths Blog. Notoriously difficult for pupils to understand, I think addition and subtraction of negatives is one of the things that one comes to understand after doing lots of practice.
HOWEVER, that practice needs to be yielding correct answers from the off. It’s no good sending pupils off to do lots of practice if they’re getting it wrong as often as they’re getting it right. Heavily influenced by our reading on working memory, here’s how we teach addition and subtraction of negative numbers: When to start – We start teaching negative numbers at the beginning of year 8.
Introducing – We spend the first lesson introducing negative numbers – touching on their history, real-life applications (briefly), finding them on a number line, ordering them, etc. No analogies – When teaching addition and subtraction, we NEVER talk about “two negatives make a positive” or use analogies about ice cubes, good/bad people, or use negative/positive tiles.
Adding and subtracting positive numbers with a positive answer. Tricks and Tips 1: HCF. Factorising Harder Quadratics. My pupils panic at the sight of a quadratic with a leading coefficient greater than one. I factorise these quadratics by inspection (the 'guess and test' method) but my pupils aren't satisfied with this suggestion - they want a more structured approach. A commonly taught method in the UK involves splitting the middle term in two (sometimes called the 'Grouping Method'). This is explained very clearly here (thanks to SRWhitehouse for this resource). Teachitmaths.co.uk has a PowerPoint explaining this method. It's worth watching James Tanton's video 'Splitting the Middle Term' too. He's not a fan! An alternative, which seems easy at first but paves the way for a large number of misconceptions, is the 'slide and divide' method.
Nix the Tricks offers an interesting alternative - I've provided two examples here but it's worth reading the book for the full explanation. How to help every child understand ratio. Dividing a quantity unevenly is an abstract idea that most children struggle with. As the problems become more complex, people struggle all the more to see what to do, for example: Jack and Jill share £28 in the ratio 5:2, how much does Jack receive? Jack and Jill share some money in the ratio 5:2. Jack receives £15, how much does Jill receive? Even a child who successfully gets their head around the process of ‘adding the numbers, divide by that amount, multiply by each number separately,’ for question 1, is then straight away often stumped by what to do when faced with question 2. There are two effective techniques for making ratio problems concrete that somehow seem to slip people for a long time, and those who know about them seem to come across by chance. The Box Method Draw out boxes to represent the ratio.
It quickly makes much more sense to a person now that they will need to share out the £28 from question 1 into 7 boxes. This method copes equally well with question 2. Before: Times Table Rockstars - Page Site. Online Version Benefits: As a teacher myself, I know that pupil engagement, learning, time and budget are important. In the development of TT Rock Stars I've given all these aspects careful consideration. Maths teachers recognise how fundamental times table recall speed is to later success in maths lessons; yet it's not always easy finding engaging ways to do daily practice.
TT Rock Stars (the paper version) has been used in many schools across the UK since 2010 and the feedback is that pupils and teachers love it. Features: As the teacher, you can select which times tables they practice each week. Want to know more? Before or after signing up, if you want to ask anything about TT Rock Stars or if something isn't working the way you think it should then email me (bruno@mrreddy.com) or call me (07800 888 800). Paper Version I'm glad you liked the look of TT Rock Stars.
First, watch this video, which will give you a good idea of what TT Rock Stars is and what it can do for your pupils. Maths everywhere. I don’t have much truck with “numeracy across the curriculum”. Dani Quinn has explained why better than I could here. But here’s something I think is much more powerful: a culture of valuing maths across the school. A sense in which it’s not just Miss Isaksen who cares about maths, but every teacher. Maths permeating the fabric of the school. Here’s how we squeeze in maths outside of maths lessons, without compromising subject content in other lessons. 1. Rolling numbers is a great first step for embedding times tables.
You can break out a quick roll anytime and anywhere. It’s nice to drop in some other rolls once they’re confident with the basics. 2. I’m lucky enough to work in a school where all teachers recognise the central importance of number facts. As we’ve gone through the year, staff have become good at working out who needs what, adjusting the level of challenge for the pupil as appropriate. I love this for so many reasons. 3. 4. Start with a number. 5. 6.
Like this: Skip to main content You are not a member of this wiki. Join now Dismiss guest Help | Sign In Mrs. Oelfke's Science Class Home guest| Help | Sign In Turn off "Getting Started" Loading... SEN Max flashcards. Soccer Math - Rounding Decimals Game. In this game you will practice your knowledge about rounding decimals to the nearest whole numbers. You have to answer each question correctly to get a chance to kick the ball. You must score enough goals to move on to the next level! To round a decimal to the nearest whole number, look at the digit that indicates the tenth place value. If this digit is greater than 5, you have to round the decimal up. If that digit is less than 5, you have to round the number down. Erase the decimal point. Example: 31.78 rounded to the nearest whole number is 32, because 7 is greater than 5, therefore we have to round the number up. 56.2 rounded to the nearest whole number is 56, because 2 is less than 5, therefore we have to round the number down to the nearest whole number.
Learn more about rounding decimals by playing the game on this page. Return to the Soccer Math Page or to the Decimals Math Games page. Because it's the beginning of the year, I'm all about creating math games that can be used to reinforce place value and operations skills. My two most recent games on this blog, Place Value Top Up and Place Value Yahtzee, have already been extremely popular with teachers. If you haven't checked them out for your math centers, be sure to do so after reading this post! The free place value game that I have for you today focuses on rounding. Once again, I've included game boards for three different versions (rounding 3-digit numbers to tens, rounding 5-digit numbers to thousands, and rounding 3-digit decimals to hundredths) so that you can choose the level that works best for your classroom.
Materials needed: Roll It! Setting up the game: 1. Choose the game board that's best for your class! 2. 3. 4. 5. Playing the game: Object of the game: To be the first player to make a line of four in a row (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) on the game board. Number of players: 2 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Tools | Scaffolding for writing & talking science - AST.
Scaffolds for writing and talking are supports for communicating in science-specific ways that may seem unnatural for students. We mean for example that writing causal explanations, talking in small groups about how evidence can be used to back up a claim, or critiquing the ideas of one’s peers in a whole class setting, are not the kinds of communication that students engage in outside of school. Tools can help—these take the form of sentence frames, guides for how to help ELL students practice final explanations, norms for whole class discussion that are developed by students, roles that students can take up in small group activity, and others. We provide a small sample of the types of scaffolding that are used during ambitious teaching. Scaffolds for talk Norms for whole class conversations It is helpful to re-visit these norms periodically, asking your students: “How did we do today in our discussion? What do we need to work on?” Role cards for small group interaction Big ideas person.
IELTS Writing Task 1: describing a line graph. Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching - Year 8. The year is divided into 2 parts - 8A and 8B. For each part there is a Pupils' Practice Book. Book 8A covers Units 1 to 11. Book 8B covers Units 12 to 20. Each Unit will have its own set of interactive tutorials - one for each section within that unit.
Practice Book 8A - Index Unit 1 (Mathematical Diagrams)1.1 Distance Charts1.2 Flow Charts for Practical Tasks1.3 Using a Flow Chart for Classification1.4 Networks Unit 2 (Factors)2.1 Factors and Prime Numbers2.2 Prime Factors2.3 Index Notation2.4 HCF and LCM Unit 3 (Pythagoras' Theorem)3.1 Pythagoras' Theorem3.2 Finding the Hypotenuse3.4 Problems in Context3.5 Constructions and Angles Unit 4 (Rounding and Estimating)4.1 Four operations (whole numbers)4.2 Four Operations (decimals)4.3 Order of Operations4.4 Problems in Context4.5 Rounding4.6 Estimating Unit 5 (Data Analysis)5.1 Frequency Tables: Discrete Ungrouped Data5.2 Mean, Median, Mode and Range Unit 6 (Nets and Surface Area)6.1 Common 2-D and 3-D shapes Practice Book 8B - Index. Math insights that click.