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.