It is no secret that Quarter the Cross is one of my favourite tasks. I've written about it twice before: as a Day 1 activity and in connection with Fraction Talks. The original source is apparently T. Dekker & N. Querelle, 2002, Great Assessment Problems (www.fi.uu.nl/catch). It has proliferated in recent years, including with an active Twitter hashtag: #QuarterTheCross. … Continue reading #QuarterTheCross Card Sort
Category: math1070
If maths was an animal …
'If maths was an animal it would be a _______ because _______ ' Responses from my #math1070 students: A koala because maths is interesting and unique. A spider because of the pattern organisation of their web. A cat because it has lots of layers. An ant because lots of small parts make up a big part. … Continue reading If maths was an animal …
A lesson plan (of sorts) for quadrilaterals
This tweet sums up today's class. We've had a two week break, culminating with a public holiday Monday. In our first class back, I wanted to add some supporting activities for the difficulties we were having in our last class. Let's just say that I'm not sure that what we did today helped! Luckily, I … Continue reading A lesson plan (of sorts) for quadrilaterals
A serendipitous Pythagorean #LessonStarter
#LessonStarter is a Twitter hashtag, used particularly by Matt Skoss, to collect together ideas that might start (or take over!) a lesson. A #LessonStarter is usually a provocative image, but could also be an intriguing mathematical prompt. For me, lesson starters are often spontaneous. Today, a few serendipitous moments meant that I had a lesson … Continue reading A serendipitous Pythagorean #LessonStarter
Skyscrapers
This is a quick post mainly for the benefit of my 'Developing Mathematical Thinking' (#math1070) students. Introducing the puzzle Skyscrapers are one of my favourite logic puzzles. They are a Japanese creation, introduced at the first World Puzzle Championship1 in 1992. Skyscrapers are a type of Latin Square puzzle. A Latin Square in an n × n … Continue reading Skyscrapers
Redux: #NoticeWonder and #PrimeClimb
Last year I wrote a post about using the two simple questions 'What do you notice?' and 'What do you wonder?' with my maths pre-service teachers to dig into the mathematically-rich image that accompanies Dan Finkel's game, Prime Climb. This year, I wanted to turn this into a student-driven rather than teacher-led activity. I also … Continue reading Redux: #NoticeWonder and #PrimeClimb
Tangling and untangling
This is the seventh in a series of posts about my course ‘Developing Mathematical Thinking’, a maths content elective for pre-service teachers training in primary and middle maths. All posts in the series are here. WARNING: It's a long post. Edited to fix the confusion between × (multiply) and x (the letter). I have been itching to try Conway's Rational Tangles … Continue reading Tangling and untangling
How many triangles?
It's been quiet on the blog, but a lot has been happening. University classes in Adelaide have just resumed after a two week mid-semester break. To warm up, I gave my MATH 1070 students the following problem. I found it via Tanya Khovanova who states that it was an entrance problem for the 2016 MIT PRIMES STEP Program. (Read more on Tanya's … Continue reading How many triangles?
Notice and wonder: the Prime Climb hundreds chart
This is the sixth in a series of posts about my course ‘Developing Mathematical Thinking’, a maths content elective for pre-service teachers training in primary and middle maths. All posts in the series are here. This is the final post detailing how I introduced 'Notice and Wonder' to my pre-service teachers. We've used it for sense making. We've then looked at photos from the world around us and brainstormed … Continue reading Notice and wonder: the Prime Climb hundreds chart
‘Notice and wonder’ and ‘slow maths’: reviving an activity that fizzled
This is the fifth in a series of posts about my course ‘Developing Mathematical Thinking’, a maths content elective for pre-service teachers training in primary and middle maths. All posts in the series are here. In my last two posts I've been explaining how I've introduced the 'Notice and Wonder' routine to my pre-service teachers. We started with the … Continue reading ‘Notice and wonder’ and ‘slow maths’: reviving an activity that fizzled
