Links to Organisations
Featured Website:
Primitives visualisation of primes and multiples.
Do you have a favourite numeracy or maths site to recommend to colleagues?
Conference 2007
Reports received so far.
Fiona Allan
Maths4Life
Fiona introduced the Thinking Through Mathematics pack to the delegates who had not had time to explore it. She explained that the pack was developed in collaboration with the Standards Unit team to provide material suitable for use in the classroom with Entry and Level 1 learners as well as containing 7 CPD sessions. Her passion for the subject showed through as she encouraged us to try out some of the games and more practical approaches that are contained in the pack, along with some useful tips on the storage of the cards – coloured lunch bags! She also told us about some very useful web links for jigsaws and offered to email them on request, she particularly mentioned the Formulator Tarsia 2006 which offers not only jigsaws and dominoes but various other card activities. This was an extremely useful and fun session which gave us the opportunity to explore some of the resources in the Thinking Through Mathematics pack.
Sally Barton
TARSIA Software Workshop
Sally initially divided us into two groups: the novices and the more experienced! We then had a go at some dominoes on the 5 times table which looked the same but had subtle differences, which would enable the teacher to differentiate between the students without them realising. Likewise with an Area and Volume hexagon jigsaw, where one was more difficult than the other.
Sally gave us some useful tips on using the expression library when creating puzzles with the Tarsia Software. It makes it ‘much much easier’ to share puzzles and adapt them for different levels.
We were all able to log on and practise creating puzzles and trying out Sally’s tips, with the experienced ones helping the novices.
This session certainly opened my eyes to the possibility of using these puzzles in my own teaching from A level to Access Maths and developing puzzles to suit my students on lots of different topics, whereas previously I had only used ready made (by someone else) puzzles.
Now I really must download the software and have a go at creating my own puzzles …….
Bob Francis
ICT in A level Statistics
Bob Francis showed us the potential for using Excel spreadsheets to demonstrate underlying concepts central to statistics at A level. He started by showing us that if you have only the probability that two people share a birthday is just about ½. This was illustrated using a spreadsheet with built in graph. He then showed how to use a spreadsheet containing a table of a discrete frequency distribution to calculate mean and standard deviation. The real strength is that the data appears simultaneously in vertical line graph and so it is easy to lead a discussion how changing the frequency of one value affects the mean and Standard Deviation. He shared a wealth of files with us covering all the most common statistics topics at A level. The files are available on this site.
John Parsons
Building Successful Games –– developing sustainable learning through enjoyment.
John allowed us to experience a new game from his learner’s point of view. We learnt the rules by playing as a group and asking questions until we had it all sorted! He shared his experiences of using learner’s knowledge of other games to invent new ones in the classroom and emphasised the importance of thinking from the player’s perspective to answer the question ‘What makes a game good?’
- Quick to learn
- Fun to play (a big factor)
- Capacity to improve
- Intrigue
Amongst lots of helpful advice John advocated some basic principles for game design.
• Focus on one/two skills - actively exclude other skills
• Do not use games where students drop out
• Lean towards skill, but include luck to level the playing field
• Try to allow players to disrupt each other’s progress
• You have to play it regularly for it to result in sustained learning
His strategies include involving the target audience in the game design, giving criteria to focus analysis and encouraging suggestions, with testing the games with learners, getting them to name the game and working on familiarization activities all leading to further engagement. He also provided a template for printing labels for use with blank playing cards.
John is the inventor of Fractis, a game involving fractions which is the first of a series of games to be published.
Blank playing cards are available from
http://www.synergy-group.co.uk/maths4a.html