All posts by Chris

My Dear Watson

Uncategorized

So, the producers of the new Sherlock Holmes movie went to real Oxford mathematicians to give a blackboard full of maths look authentic, but they go got more than they bargained for. They developed a code based on clues left for Moriaty’s interests and specialisms and even scripted a lecture he is shown giving. Now imagine the possibilities for the classroom. The desire to keep it real, consistent and authentic, even though no-one would ever check. That’s the real mathematical mind at work!

We have a neat double sided version of an old pub game called shut-the-box. You roll two dice and flip down numbered pieces totaling the dice score, your score is what’s left when you cannot go. There have been two types of response from secondary maths teachers to this:

1. That’s much too easy for our kids.

2. How could I analyse and describe the structure of this game.

I think we can call this the shut-the-box test to find out where people actually teach mathematics.

Our Island Life Game

Financial Literacy, ,

Island Life is a game for ages 8 to 13 (but is great to play by anyone). There are two versions, both of which come with the same board, but are different games with different components.
The board shows three holiday islands with a range of exciting attractions, linked by rail, road and ferry. Naturally, you will be cycling around these dream islands, so you choose a coloured bicycle and rider as your playing piece. Continue reading Our Island Life Game →

It’s the Maths we care about

School Issues,

I am currently interviewing candidates for the 2012/13 PGCE maths. We expect fees for the course to be in excess of £9000 this year, but there is still a bursary for those coming in to teaching. There has been great publicity about the present secretary of state’s interest in teachers with highly accredited subject knowledge, so the bursaries are £20K if you have a 1st, £15K for a 2:1 and £12K for a 2:2. If you have a 3rd in your first degree, no support is given, so you will not get a place. Now it is deeply arguable as to whether there is any relationship between the class of your degree and your abilities as a teacher. However, when you find out that the subject of the degree is not relavent, nor is the University it came from, then you simply have to look in awe and wonder and ask if the DfE did this after a drunken night out and forgot to review. It is seriously the case that a candidate with a 1st in Spanish (and presumably a maths enhancement course) from AnyWhere Uni will get £20K and someone with a 2:2 in Pure Maths from Cambridge will get £12K to become a maths teacher. If someone has Mr Gove’s ear, please check that he really means this. I cannot believe he does.

Charmingly, Mr Gove’s maths Tsar has a 3rd in Engineering. The power of celebrity knows no bounds.

Making it ‘Real’

Financial Literacy, Games and Puzzles, School Issues, , ,

As owners of a games shop we are honour bound to play games at Christmas! No really, we do love them. So, Val, Katie (13) and I played a game of Risk. Now Risk is not so PC overall but, well, when you have made an alliance with the mass armies (in this case of the evil of middle earth) and they have attacked your opponent on your behalf and your turn comes round and you now realise you can renege on your agreement and wipe them out … well that is tough. Emotion, scruples, morality all bound up in tough decision making. Now I think you really (up to a point seriously) do have to debrief after a game like that, but is sure is that you are in the situation making the decisions … a history lesson for sure but not just discussing the issues cold. Continue reading Making it ‘Real’ →

Assessment

Games and Puzzles, School Issues, Uncategorized,

I had an interesting conversation with a former maths teacher who was telling me how much she disliked ‘investigations’. She said that you could never tell whether a student had done the work themselves or if their Dad had done it for them. It was clear to me that steering the conversation round to wondering about the difference between investigating mathematically and submitting GCSE coursework, wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I had to nod and force a polite smile. On one level it was deeply depressing how pleased maths teachers were when GCSE coursework was abandoned for maths exams. On the other, the whole process had been so discredited … Continue reading Assessment →

Maths Events

Games and Puzzles, School Issues,

I was asked to run a session for PGCE students using a kit of parts we make called Maths-for-a-Day. Basically, we took the content of the kits I had produced for the shopping centre events I organised during Maths Year 2000 and packaged them up in a box suitable for a school maths event. I asked for 6 volunteers from the group to staff the activities and the remainder were punters. Continue reading Maths Events →

Virtual Learning Environments

School Issues, ,

I’ve done a lot of work with Fronter, I manage a number of Moodle VLEs e.g. The Education Interactive courses portal and the ATM/MA London Branch at King’s site LondonMaths . At King’s, I use their ELK (formally BlackBoard) system. So, what is it, that these systems sell themselves on? Really it boils down to one thing: anywhere, anytime access to teaching materials. Sure, you can make cute little multiple choice quizzes that are self marking and record and track progress, but you are clearly noit going to design and build your own set of these for your whole courses. Student protfolios are very neat, but they only work if students can SUBMIT their work Continue reading Virtual Learning Environments →

Check out my New HP39/40GS training page. It’s in the Courses Menu … Here you’ll find links to getting the emulators in the UK, my activities pack, the HP homeview site and I’ve created a couple of training videos to show different aspects of using the machines. Let me know what you think and what else you might like to help you get going with the calculators.

HP STEM Activity Competition

Maths Technology, , , , , ,

To any teachers out there who come across my blog, we have a competition:

WIN 30 HP40GS calculators and a data streaming kit (worth £2000)

We are setting up an exemplar STEM teaching room for teachers. We need top quality activities to do in the room, which will be premiered at the Olympia BETT show. We need a detailed exposition of the activity together with any supporting materials (e.g. worksheets etc.) In entering, you give us permission to use the activity (suitably credited) in the STEM room and in a booklet which we will produce with all of the entries and which will be available free to teachers. We would like activities using HP39/40GS or 50G graphing calculators, but any other software which runs under windows (and therefore on the new HP windows 7 slate) would do fine. The activity must be an application which merges mathematics with science or engineering. Send one zipped folder of files with your full contact details to: chris.olley@kcl.ac.uk. Closing date is Friday 9th of December.