In high school, I played the guitar. I had three major influences, the first of whom was my guitar teacher, James Brown. Yes, that was his name. He had the patience of a saint… literally. I was always late to lessons, yet he always seemed to have extra time for me. James’ approach to teaching…
So much of mathematics is focused on the end point: the answer, the solution, the proof. We attach so much emphasis on the destination — the more efficient the better. We place such high value on the final moment of the mathematical process; this is reflected in the language we choose to define one of…
I love John Mason and although I’ve even quoted it myself a few times, I think I don’t wholeheartedly agree with the statement “it is the ways of thinking that are rich, not the task itself”. Let’s face it: some math problems are better than others, and choosing the right one for students to explore…
I’ve been wanting to write another blog post for a while now. Throughout this year, I have been inspired by my students to get typing and start sharing my thoughts online. It’s been great, but now that they’ve finished up, I feel the need to have a look back to see what the year entailed.…
Last Friday, we took a massive leap in what we hope is a forward direction. The Maths coordinator (@Jason_Loke) and I gave our students a summative assessment task that could potentially change the way we assess students in maths. In South Australia, we have two main types of assessment in mathematics: Folio Tasks (Mathematical Investigations) and…
8:33am I’ve just finished a conversation with a colleague to frantically finish/start planning how the hell I was going to teach solving quadratics to my Year 10s and 11s at 8.40am. I posted this photo on Twitter the night before the lesson, probably while procrastinating from actually planning the next morning’s maths lesson: This is…
I’ve been learning more and more that students’ opinions about maths are actually related to the feeling of “not knowing” than maths itself. Sure, many students have a wall firmly built that keeps their anxiety about learning maths in perfect condition. I do believe, however, it’s a developed expectation to be saved by the teacher…
Recently, I have been utilising Open Middle problems more and more. What I particularly like about these problems is the sense of challenge that drives students to find a possible answer. After using many awesome problems directly from the Open Middle website, I decided to have a go at writing my own and use these develop…
A new semester meant a fresh start to try some new things in my maths classroom that would hopefully turn the dial of cognitive demand to appropriately awesome. Here’s what I did with my clean slate: I read The Classroom Chef These guys (Matt Vaudrey & John Stevens) hit the nail on the head repetitively without…
Reports… What would you want your report to look like? Reports, the time of year when we, as teachers, have to flawlessly write comments that are less descriptive, less critical, and less meaningful than the conversations we have with our students about their actual progress or overall performance in our classes. What is more important…
How I teach maths. 