Sharing great ideas and resources with maths teachers around the world

I’ve recently been exploring the story behind the headlines when it comes to the PISA tests. It’s a story that needs telling as it places some pretty large caveats on any interpretation of the international league tables published by PISA. There are many PISA sceptics who cite such arguments as: The tests are only taken by, and percentages quoted about, students in school that day. It ignores the non-attenders who can account for significant proportions of society in many countries.Only approximately 10% of students take the full test. The rest take only part of the test and their answers to the questions they didn’t take are estimated using a Rasch model.

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Resources for Engineering > Algebra from mathcentre Just the Maths (A.J.Hobson) "Just the Maths" authored by the late Tony Hobson, former Senior Lecturer in Mathematics of the School of Mathematical and Information Sciences at Coventry University, is a collection of separate mathematics units, in chronological topic-order, intended for foundation level and first year degree level in higher education where mathematics is a service discipline e.g. engineering. Completing the square is an algebraic technique which has several applications. These include the solution of quadratic equations. In this unit we use it to find the maximum or minimum values of quadratic functions. This resource is released under a Creative Commons license Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works and the copyright is held by Skillbank Solutions Ltd.

Making Maths: Clinometer A clinometer is a tool that is used to measure the angle of elevation, or angle from the ground, in a right - angled triangle. You can use a clinometer to measure the height of tall things that you can't possibly reach to the top of, flag poles, buildings, trees. Follow the directions below to create your own clinometer. You will need: A protractor with a small hole on the centre spot orPrint out of paper protractor (see below)Poster board or card board (can be from a box) to back the protractor20 cm or about 8 inches of string or strong cottonWeight - such as a metal nut, paper clips or a small piece of clayGlue and ScissorsA strawClear TapeItems marked with the red check are needed with either type of protractor. Directions:

Math Crosswalk - Resources Multiple Topics and Multiple Ages Cyberchase. PBS. A lively cartoonish site encourages children to engage in mathematics through games, activities, and videos. Figure This! National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. More than a maths teacher In his book Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, Seth Godin, a marketing expert, argues that advertising is less effective than it used to be because we are bombarded by adverts – which we tend to ignore. His solution is to have an amazing product – a purple cow in a field of black and white cows, so that it stands out and really captures the imagination. In his presentation at TM Bett 14, Julian Wood suggested that something similar could be done in our classrooms.

How Do We Know When Students Are Engaged? (Updated 11/2013) Educational author and former teacher, Dr. Michael Schmoker shares in his book, Results Now, a study that found of 1,500 classrooms visited, 85 percent of them had engaged less than 50 percent of the students. In other words, only 15 percent of the classrooms had more than half of the class at least paying attention to the lesson. Surds - Mathematics GCSE Revision Surds are numbers left in 'square root form' (or 'cube root form' etc). They are therefore irrational numbers. The reason we leave them as surds is because in decimal form they would go on forever and so this is a very clumsy way of writing them.

Overview - About the Assessment - Math Reasoning Inventory MRI is an online formative assessment tool designed to make teachers’ classroom instruction more effective. The MRI questions focus on number and operations and are based on content from the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics prior to sixth grade. They are questions that we expect…and hope…all middle school students to answer successfully. Mr Reddy Maths Blog Over the next week I want to speak to 100 maths teachers about an idea that’s been brewing in my head for a while. Please sign up below! They say “necessity is the mother of invention”; well, I got frustrated at how much time I was spending finding the right …