Leaving FE

This week I resigned my post as a Further Education Maths Lecturer. I have decided to leave teaching for the moment.

I was struggling to balance my workload and was spending most evenings marking and planning despite only being part time.

I was no longer enjoying the job, particularly being in the classroom.

I did not feel like I was as good at teaching as I was before I had my son.

I had been injured in the classroom and there were no consequences for the student.

I miss my colleague who died a year ago and the workplace reminds me of that.

I am looking forward to spending more time with my son. I am excited about what the future holds and not having a plan for the first time in years.

EDUC115N - How to learn math(s)

Well I have now started the Jo Boaler course:

 

https://class.stanford.edu/courses/Education/EDUC115N/How_to_Learn_Math/about and I'm really enjoying it. It is the best use of a MOOC I've seen. The videos are very short and you are given a task to do between each one. I've read her book and Carol Dweck's mindset one so I thought most of it would be familiar but I was wrong and there is loads of new things.

 

I can't believe I haven't read
http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/mnewman/LockhartsLament.pdf before. It was something I thought I had read but when I read it I found it mindblowing. Also I didn't know that secant was to do with 15th century nautical tables. I really recommend it. It also explained the US maths system a bit which has always confused me. The course is open for new students until September so if you haven't signed up have a go.

 

Other summer projects

 

Python coding - I've got a bit stuck. I should have taken notes as I went along. I will keep going and make notes from now on.

 

Learning to run - been a bit lazy as we're in a heatwave but will get back on it.

 

Learn to draw- did an upside down drawing that wasn't too bad.

 

Twitter- I've been on it as much as usual. The Boaler course hashtag is #howtolearnmath by the way

 

http://www.dailydesmos.com/ - not yet

 

Goodreads 2013 reading challenge - read a few books on holiday last week and I'm now only 5 behind my target. My favourite of which was The age of miracles  by Karen Walker.

 

Toddler new words - cheese

 

Blog again before September - achieved yay.

 

 

Summer 2013 Projects

Afternoon All,

 

Today I have a day at home toddler free so I thought I would revive my very sporadic blog. Every summer I like to set myself a few projects to feel like I have achieved something with the generous holiday I am granted by the UK education system. I have done this for years starting with the summer I taught myself to touch type on my electronic typewriter with a book from the library aged 14. My summer holiday starts this Friday, we finish earlier than schools in Further Education (FE). So here are this summer's projects:

Take the Jo Boaler Education Course

 

How to Learn Math starts on the 15th July and I'm very excited about it. There are a lot of reluctant maths learners in FE and I'm hoping this course will give me some clues on how to win them round. I really enjoyed The Elephant in the Classroom.

 

Learn to code in Python

I took a Java course at university and hated it. I had to use SPSS as part of my job as an analyst and found it very frustrating. I saw a Maths lecturer use Python for looking into proof at a talk at the University of London we took our A level students too and felt compelled to look into it further. I started a codecademy course on Python and am enjoying it so far. Anything with Monty Python references has got to be good.

 

Learn to run

 

Last week I downloaded the Zombies run 5k training app. It is an app that tells you a story about zombies whilst encouraging you to run. I've quite enjoyed it so far though it intersperses the story with your music and I would prefer more story.

 

Learn to draw

 

Whilst reading the excellent Mindset by Carol S. Dweck she recommended a book on teaching terrible artists how to draw Drawing on the right side of the brain by Betty Edwards. I have bought the workbook and am currently learning how to see things properly to draw. I have always said I am terrible at drawing but I really haven't practised it very much. It annoys me when people boast about their terribleness at Maths but I have been the same about drawing so I'm going to try and change that.

 

I am also going to:

• stay up to date with my personal learning network on Twitter using #mathchat #ukedchat #UMFac.
• try and solve at least one dailydesmos.
• catch up on my reading for the Goodreads 2013 reading challenge (currently 8 books behind to reach my target of 50).
• teach my toddler a few more words (currently has cheers, ready, steady, go, up, bye and daddy) and read to him more.
• blog again at least once before September.

Enjoy your summer readers,

Vx

I'm teaching information that is 300 years old

Oh dear almost a month without posting. Well I have done my first week of proper teaching and it was as hectic as usual. I think my first lessons were ok but I'm definitely out of the swing of it. I need to plan more thoroughly but I'm moving house this week and my timetable was changed after I left work for the week so this will probably be difficult. I'm enjoying teaching A2 Maths again and my students are lovely. We are starting with the numerical methods coursework which is a bit dry but hopefully will warm them up for the maths to come. I'm teaching lots of reluctant GCSE students this year.

I've let the gamification Coursera course slide and have started another one Introduction to Mathematical Thinking with Keith Devlin. I will not be able to fully participate in this one either as I won't have broadband for a fortnight after moving. However it's still got me thinking. One statement in the introduction reasoning really got to me - "the typical high school curriculum comprises of mathematics at least three-hundred years old, some of it over two-thousand years old!" I knew this but I'd never really thought about it. Really we are teaching a historical course. The ancient rules have been past on from generation to generation almost like a religious text. My thoughts on the usefulness of the GCSE syllabus varies from year to year. I think Maths is a key topic but some of the things we teach are no longer useful particular if you finish your maths education at 16. What is the use of understanding Pythagoras' theorem but not being ripped off by credit card interest?

I've just finished the third episode of The Bletchley Circle. A lovely drama on ITV with a great cast. In the episode the main character reaches for The Principles of Mathematics by Bertrand Russell in an emergency. It was great to see maths portrayed positively for a change.

Gamification and first week back

Well my first week back at work is complete. Yes I know it's only Thursday but I'm a part time skiver now. Monday was very confusing. It took the whole morning to adjust to being back. I did learn how to use the new printer though so I consider that day a win. You can scan documents on our printer and email them from it. Amazing huh?

Tuesday I was feeling back in the swing of it. First big A level meeting. Teachers do love a good moan don't they? I presented our department's results. Yesterday we had our department meeting. I found out I'm co-ordinating the daytime GCSE and may be taking two A level classes.

Away from work I've been enjoying the gamification course on Coursera and it has really got me thinking about how I could apply more game ideas to my lessons. I would like my lessons to be more playful and fun particularly GCSE and functional maths.

I've been enjoying the resources on the number loving website recommended by TES maths resources/Mr Barton though some of the items won't download for me.

I have just downloaded the blogger app and am writing this from my phone. I very rarely use the laptop these days. Smart phones have really changed how I operate probably not completely for the better.

Introducing myself

How do you introduce yourself to your classes?  I normally give my name and contact details. I'm about to start my 6th year of teaching and have been wondering whether to mention this and a bit more about my background. Just diving straight into long multiplication seems a bit rude somehow.

I'm getting more excited about the new academic year. I return from maternity leave on the 3rd September but teaching doesn't start for two weeks. I perused the pencil cases in town today but think I will stick with my old one. I did buy a new notebook with my Waterstone points.

 

 

I have decided to ditch my academic diary and just use outlook for scheduling. This is going to be my first term as a part time worker and mum so it will be very different. Any tips much appreciated.

 

I've also signed up for this course

https://www.coursera.org/#course/gamification I think gamification in education is an interesting idea. Manga High and Mathletics seem to be going down well in schools and I'm intrigued if this idea could work for my 16+ students. 

Hello World again

Morning everyone.

Inspired by http://samjshah.com/2012/08/06/new-blogger-initiation-pledge-by-tuesday-august-14th/ I am restarting my blog. I know it's been a while but I feel the need to restart. I have been seduced by the ease of twitter and that has been where I have been mostly shouting into the darkness.

I'm returning to teaching in a fortnight after 9 months maternity leave. I'm hoping it will all come back to me. I think I'm teaching A2 core and that will really test my mathematical muscles after this gap.

My new academic year resolutions are:

1) Reflect more on my lessons and record this somewhere so when I teach the topics again I improve. I know this sounds simple but I often can't remember which are my best resources and which ones have errors in a year on and end up using them again and kicking myself.

2) Take the coursera course Introduction to Mathematical Thinking
I've practised on the Science Fiction and Fantasy course and found the whole thing very interesting. Are MOOC's the future?

3) Try to finish the last past of my mini masters course. This involves doing a research cycle with one of my A level groups and writing about it. I haven't any ideas on what to do this on yet and want to get into the swing of being a mum and a teacher first but it's bubbling away in the background.

This is going to be a difficult year as one of my closest colleagues and friends is dying and I will miss her terribly at work. She is doing a parachute jump next week.
http://www.justgiving.com/katys-skydive

Call of duty black ops - Functional Maths resource?

My lovely husband alerted me to the statistics that are popping up on the call of duty black ops load screen.
These are updated daily (he thinks) but today they include:

• Players have run around the world 19127 times
• 167 billion rounds of ammo fired
• 132% of the worlds population have been killed
• 11,178 years spent playing
• 308% of the the GDP of Ireland in USD has been spent

Could be used for an interesting starter for a functional maths lesson or GCSE group?

Oops I forgot to blog - A level note taking?

My first November blog. Last week was our annual observation week so I have been a bit distracted by that. I passed my observation with a good. Strangely enough they did watch my AS level lesson. I did make a bit of a bodge of it by using resources that were too complicated and not having a back up. What I've been pondering recently is the best way to give notes to students. I've experimented with several options:

• writing things on the board/smart board and they copy
• letting them make their own notes from what I say/mymaths
• giving out formal MEI notes at the end of lessons
• giving out formal MEI notes at the beginning of lessons
• giving out powerpoint slides for them to annotate

I'm not sure what works best. Any tips?

MEI Mechanics Day

I went to the MEI Mechanics day yesterday. I really enjoyed it despite fighting against London public transport putting me in a bad mood. The presenter was friendly and knowledgeable. She was easily understood and not patronising. I found the graphical representation of the constant acceleration formulae fascinating. I wish I'd known earlier that you could derive most of the formulae from area under a velocity time graph. The man next to me was slightly irritating to work with as he didn't listen to anything I said. There is a nagging feeling as I undertake more of the TAM course that I don't know enough maths to teach it. I'm finding it increasingly frustrating as I don't know enough maths. I learn one bit and then discover I don't know a huge bit more. Also parts I thought I understood I'm finding I didn't really. I just knew procedures.

Frustration number two is equations with modulus functions. Why does mod(2x)+10=0 not have any solutions?

On a more positive note interesting debate on primary homework on woman's hour at the moment.

Observed Lesson

Right now this one's official. I need to make comments on my observed lesson for my TAM course. Now this was on Tuesday so I'm a little bit late. Hmm I felt I talked too much. I wasn't sure everyone understood particularly the new people in the group. Some of the kids on the front row weren't completely focussed. I intended to recap remainder theorem the next lesson. Which I did. I also let students write on the board which worked well. I need to let the students have more control. I think I like to control as much as possible but need to more of a facilitator but not be afraid who to talk more. Maybe I should have done this earlier in the week...

It's half term yay! Going to have the full weekend off and not think about work. Well I failed there then.  At work on Monday/Tuesday then on a course in London on Wednesday on Mechanics. Then two whole days off before observation week.

Functional Maths ideas?

No posts for a while as work has got predictably manic. Had a productive morning planning A level lessons ready for the two observations I have coming up. Now I'm teaching 27 hours a week I seem to be struggling to keep up with everything. The admin alone seems to fill my time and I have little time for actually thinking through the teaching and learning except on weekends. I probably have taken too much on which is my usual habit. My other hat is functional maths co-ordinator and I'm struggling to find interesting resources for this. I have a bunch of problems for them to solve but I want to create something relevant to engage them. Any ideas? I thought of something to do with alcohol consumption and when it would be safe to drive the next day but thought that could backfire on me.

Bad day

Ach had one of those dark teacher days where you try to convince yourself you're not totally useless. Had a confrontational functional maths lesson where a group of girls decided they wanted a fight with someone and today I was there chosen victim. So irritating, particularly for those you actually want to help. Then I had my A2 proof lesson which I was really looking forward to. I'd found lots of bits over the weekend I wanted to use including that lovely 1=2 proof. Came to the lesson and I forgot two of my demonstration proofs halfway through. Even though I normally know them like the back of my hand. I think it was a combination of being asked to be recorded and my confidence being shaken earlier in the day. So annoyed with myself. What is even more irritating is that I did a TAM session on proof a couple of weeks ago. It was my first proper taught lesson with this group and I'm sure I came across a complete numpty. Need to do a better job of the next session on logs to make up for it.  Think I will keep it nice a simple, work through every question carefully and write out my solutions clearly this time. Now need to try and relax and move on. If only I had mastered that skill!

On a positive note I've just found out you can get an index of all the slides on elluminate and skip to the one you want. Very useful. (You click the up arrow by the play/ fastforward buttons on the bottom left of the screen)

It's the weekend

The dreaded cold has almost gone and I have successfully passed it on to my husband. I've been full of post cold efficiency today and the house is marginally cleaner and I've caught up on all those personal statements I promised I would amend. The comment from one of my students of would I check it through the plagarism test to see if it would pass was slightly worrying.

Is anyone doing Nanowrimo this year? I will attempt to sell it to my tutor groups again this year. I might have a go but with my TAM course and the possible call up to do functional maths marking (fingers crossed) I will be a bit overstretched already this autumn. Have two TAM recordings to watch. One on discrete and one on statistics. I've never taught discrete maths but I enjoyed the module at uni. Everyone just seems to do M1 and S1 for the pass rates. I'm also interested in how to make statistics more inviting to students as I tried and failed last year.

It worked - What did I do?

So today I had a good A level lesson. I'm full of cold. Probably 3/5 on the grumpiness scale. I didn't plan anything extravagant. I used mymaths instead of writing out the examples as usual. I got the class to do a textbook exercise for the lesson instead of card sorting or deep thought problems. Why was this the first time I felt my lesson worked? Had the carousel mixed group work last lesson built up their confidence? Had the 30 min drop in help session before the lesson with another teacher calmed them. Was I less stressy because I was ill?

In other news I think I need a new hobby. One of my favourite bloggers:
http://diario.bunny-land.com/
is always talking about knitting and cooking. It's made me I think I need to be more well rounded like her. I also like her use of bullet points. 

Shattered

So another week of teaching and I'm shattered. Stayed six hours late today and I'm still not caught up. Is it always this bad in September? Have I just blocked it out? Successful Newton-Rhapson lesson this morning. Now a TAM lesson on proof. Fish and chips when I finish is getting me through.

How do you make everyone talk?

So my A2 lesson went better than I hoped for. Next thing I want to improve is class involvement. Half the class talk half don't. I have a few ideas. I also want increase confidence for the quieter ones. Any ideas?

Fixed point iteration Sunday

Spent the morning trying to figure out how to teach fixed point iteration in particular the rearranging the equation method. Trying to teach something really makes you learn it thoroughly. I thought I understood it until I tried to create a lesson plan trying to explain the method. I think I have satisfactory answers for most of the but why questions that might come up. Is there a better way of describing why the gradient effects diverging/converging apart from showing staircase/cobweb on the graph? Do others teach Newton-Rhapson first? Think I'm going to have to work every sunday to keep on top of this A level content this year.

Numerical Methods

How to make numerical methods more interesting? I need to do a better job than I did today. Additional chaos caused by timetable issues that had me scheduled in two places at once and half the class arriving an hour late. I think I stayed remarkably calm given this. Turns out I was meant to be in the other place and my A2 time has been cut my an hour 15 mins a week due to low numbers. A2 maths in 2 and 1/2 hrs a week this is going to be interesting. Yay it's the weekend.

First AS lesson

Well I waited till this morning to blog about yesterday's lesson so I could be more positive. Also because I was exhausted last night. So positive things:

• They enjoyed the first card sort activity
• Most of them know how to draw y=x
• By introducing midpoint as the mean and length as applying pythagoras didn't seem to get many input into formula type errors
• Some of them are keen
• No one was injured

Ok negative:

• I was thrown by such a big class (20 soon to be 22) particular when I ran out of desks
• I assumed too much knowledge (some needed reminding of plotting coordinates)
• I was trying to more flowing and flexible but I think I need more structured questionning planned
• A few of them were a bit bolshy
• I probably came across as nervous

I think these things are fixable so we'll see how things go next Tuesday after some thorough planning.