This semester, I have the most challenging class that I have ever taught and I am incredibly grateful. For just over two years, I have gone through many weeks feeling like I have “nailed the lesson”. I have walked out of the classroom having felt like my students were engaged, seeing them solve real…
They say that one of the best ways to learn something at a deeper level is to teach it to someone else. Over my first three years I have been doing exactly that, learning through teaching. Through my four year teaching degree, I learnt a lot about the different contexts that my students may…
Whether it’s picking the trigger happy judge on The Voice or the next raw egg in Jimmy Fallon’s Egg Roulette, television shows are rich with potential lessons for your classroom. As a Maths teacher, I use my powers of finding what the students enjoy and ruining it with what they hate – maths problems. I…
Problem Based Learning in Mathematics – how can we authentically respond to the students’ needs while maintaining the appropriate level of challenge, harnessing student interest, and helping them connect their prior knowledge with new content that they see as useful and important?
Investigating the mathematical prices of pizzas
Lesson here. So today I asked my Year 12 Maths Studies students if they have ever bought a Mars Bar during the “Free Bars” Promotion where 1 in every 6 bars wins a free Mars Bar. A few hands around the classroom went up and we were discussing who had the longest run of free…
Learning how to create Cubic and Quartic regression models and apply them to analyse Australian Rules Football statistics – 3-Act Maths
Today was the penultimate day of school, coming second only to its slightly more beautiful, ultimate day of school – otherwise known as the second to last and the last days of school! Trouble is, today was also the last real opportunity that I had to complete my “application” to come off probationary employment. What…
How I teach maths. 