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Thursday 11 December 2014

#10minwin - Speed Mathing

Following an observation of Tony Ostersen's Religion & Philosophy lesson, I saw how effective sixth form pupils are at teaching each other and was eager to try it in mechanics.

Each pupil was given an exam question and given 15 minutes to solve it and prepare to teach it.

Students then arranged themselves on either the inner or outer circle (which I prepared whilst they were working individually on their questions) like so:


After each teach they looked less and less at their notes, as their fluency developed. I saw a wonderful side to a lot of the students, giving excellent demonstrations of knowledge and explanations.

Students used a variety of pre-drawn diagrams, question annotations & whiteboards in their teaching.
I was delighted that somebody re-dubbed Speed Dating as Speed Mathing!


They also filled in space in a grid for each "teacher" and what they had learnt on that table (they could write it down even if they already knew it too).

Here's the feedback:
:-) Pros
- fun
- saw different ways to approach problems
- more familiar with topics
- understand your question in great detail
- nice change

:-( Cons (and thoughts on how I can change for the better)
- time consuming
- could learn the wrong way
- would have liked more time to prepare

Changes to be Made
=> give students questions to prepare for homework so they can take as long as they like to work through and feel confident with it
=> consider having only 5 questions in circulation rather than 10. Each pair begins to work on the problem, then one of the pair has to move round with the question. By the end there should be 5 completed questions which everyone has some knowledge of.