So today began with the lesson from hell, Anne maxed us all out by putting us in an actual lesson situation, which we were then to tear apart after she'd finished! We came up with a whole load of ways in which it was "wrong" - how long until I accidentally make one of those mistakes :-S The main issues were:
Title: Multiplying Multi-Digit Numbers by 7
Learning Objective: Multiplying Multi-Digit Numbers by 7
So what do you think the lesson is about today? Multiplying Multi-Digit Numbers by 7
- insufficient number of examples
- no examples written down or left on board
- blamed a mistake she made on us
- didn't qualify what "show working" meant
- didn't allow us to use the method we were used to
- no space on worksheet
- completely unenjoyable!
I also found out something very interesting about dyslexia, that students struggle to read and write at the same time - something to consider. Another intern was particularly helpful in highlighting some other points to think about to make it easier.
We were then introduced to our first task:
Task 1: Writing on a Whiteboard
More notes on this task can be found on the Maths Tasks document.
A random idea that came to me was for a possible plenary activity: "This maths will be useful to me in the future because..." perhaps to encourage students that the topic will actually be useful!
We were then looking at ways to be articulate in mathematics; our words are below.
We were then looking at ways to be articulate in mathematics; our words are below.
Sticker Match up Lesson with Nick
The class began with each student being given a sticker with a shape on it and sent outside - we were to get into groups of similar shapes, then split into two according to a criteria we decided upon.
Back in the classroom we were given a sheet of all the shapes in our group and asked to think of different ways to group them.
N.B. These were on stickers which we stuck onto post its so they were "easier to move around."
A possible extension to this, would have been to have each shape labelled with a prime number, then multiply those in each group together, give it to the other "half" of our group and get them to do prime factor decomposition to work out the groups. They would then need to look at the pattern to find out which group one belonged to.
Two types of knowledge:
Subject knowledge
Pedagogical subject knowledge (articulating the ideas to a class)
Novel Mathematics
Kaprika's Problem
Any three digit number, providing it had at least two different digits that were more than one apart would follow this pattern.
a) Arrange digits into largest possible number
b) Arrange digits into smallest possible number
c) Subtract from each other
d) Take answer and repeat
It would always converge to 9.
Extension: Think about convergence in different bases. Doing this in base 8 made us consider what it might be like for struggling student to do it in decimal!
Another thing to consider is what do you do when some of the class get it and some don't?
- extend for those that understand, repeat to improve others
- bring whole class together
The day finished with our Friday Reflections Assignment, a retrospective look back at this week for Monday and deciding on our topic for next week. This is within our TLC, topic discussion can be found in the Friday Reflections W/B 24/09/2012 document.
