#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
Category: #noticewonder
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
#NoticeWonder with everyday concepts
I often joke that my blog should be called 'Notice and Wonder in Mathematics' because I blog about the 'Notice and Wonder' prompt often enough! In case you are not familiar with it, the ‘Notice and Wonder’ prompt involves asking two questions: ‘What do you notice?’ and ‘What do you wonder?’. These are powerful questions to engage students. ‘Notice and … Continue reading #NoticeWonder with everyday concepts
#NoticeWonder and Rational Tangles
Yesterday we held the first of this year's Maths Experience days. We invite students in Years 10 and 11 from different schools onto campus for an intensive one-day program. Students find out about mathematical research, talk to professionals who use mathematics in their careers in some way, and participate in hands-on mathematics workshops. Importantly, they also meet and connect with other students … Continue reading #NoticeWonder and Rational Tangles
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
Notice and wonder: the world around us
This is the fourth in a planned 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 previous post, I talked about how I used sense making as a powerful motivator for the 'Notice and Wonder' routine. My next step was … Continue reading Notice and wonder: the world around us
Notice and wonder: sense making
This is the third in a planned 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. It's been three weeks (how time flies!) since I last posted about this course. There are 1.5 workshops that I haven't written about. We also missed three classes … Continue reading Notice and wonder: sense making
Counting in unexpected ways
It was a delight to recently spend five days working with students and teachers in Alice Springs at the invitation of MTANT, the Mathematics Teachers Association of the Northern Territory. I then spent a week in bed with the flu, which is one reason I've recently lost my voice (both physically and online). The main purpose of the visit was to join … Continue reading Counting in unexpected ways
I’m not sure if it is important, but I noticed …
Another puzzle: Can you arrange the numbers 1 to 17 in a row so that each adjacent pair adds up to a square number? This puzzle comes from one of my favourite resources, nrich.maths.org. That site is a treasure-trove of rich low-threshold high-ceiling tasks. I'm not going to explicitly tell you how to solve it here — you … Continue reading I’m not sure if it is important, but I noticed …
