It is the start of another academic year in Australian universities, and colleagues around the country are caught up in a flurry of organising unit outlines, wrangling webpages, writing lecture notes, setting tutorial activities, untangling enrolment issues, resolving timetable clashes, recruiting tutors, submitting staff contracts, ... GASP! I implore you to find a quiet moment … Continue reading Kindness and grace in our classrooms
#read2017: My year in books
I love to read but don't always make enough time. In 2016, I redressed this by planning to read 50 books. I blogged about the books (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). I took on the same challenge in 2017 buoyed on by my 2016 success (53 books), and managed to read 62 books. This year, blogging about the books … Continue reading #read2017: My year in books
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
My maths autobiography
School maths I have always loved maths, but the reasons why have changed dramatically over time. This is my Year 1 work. It reminds me about what I thought it meant to be good at maths: lots of ticks on neat work, especially if it was done quickly. This attitude was reinforced by my report … Continue reading My maths autobiography
