February 2011 News

 

Most people who use NRICH know that the content is renewed each month. Each new issue takes quite a long time to generate and test out: for example we began February's site last summer. Now that the month is finalised it's fascinating to see the way the initial ideas have played out, and how the co-ordinators of each phase have interpreted that initial brainstorming.

 

With Liz and the primary team I have been working on devising content for the Early Years. Liz says more about this below - but suffice to say that it has made us think in a different way about what questions we need to ask, and how we can help even small children to be mathematicians in the making. Frequently these questions are about how they worked something out rather than what the answer might be. Similarly the Stage 1 and 2 tasks this month are designed to encourage children to reflect on their solutions to a problem, and to think about whether there is another way of solving it that may be more elegant or economical.

 

At Stages 3 and 4 Charlie and Alison have devised new tasks but also revisited some of their favourite problems which they have been using with students during the last few months. Their thinking about these has changed over time and the revised teachers notes reflect this. You can also see Charlie and Alison in action here. We hope to do more videoing of the team whilst working with students and teachers and we'd really like feedback on how useful you think this is. 

 

Steve actually lead the way for February and suggested the theme of reflecting and refining solutions of methods of solving. .

 

Although the site is our core business it's amazing how much else there is to do. I spent a couple of days in four schools in Brighton and Hove teaching years 3,4, and 5 and helping with planning. Lovely to get back into the classroom and the children were a delight. I was modelling how 'Low Threshold High Ceiling' activities can be used with different ages and abilities - I used Magic V's which went down well with all.

 

Being a Member of ACME also takes a good part of my week and of course it's a very interesting time to be involved in any sort of policy making. Recently we've been discussing early and multiple entry for GCSE, what sort of arithmetical knowledge, skills and understanding primary children could be expected to have by the time they leave primary school, and what might be a sensible option to KS2 SATS. (If you wish to have your say follow the links for consultation on the curriculum and/or testing.)

 

And then, as usual, there were lots of meetings......

 

 

Last month I had the opportunity of working with PGCE students at Bath Spa University. We worked on some favourite NRICH problems:

 

In the evening I was invited by the Bath branch of ATM to work with some of the local teachers. We worked on What's Possible?

 

A few days later a group of Year 9 students from Morpeth School in Tower Hamlets came to work with us at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge. Alison and I led a session working on Tilted Squares - you can see some video footage of our work in the Teachers' Notes to the problem.

 

We have almost finished planning the second Teacher Inspiration Day, which will take place on the 24th March. We may have sufficient funds to run a similar programme in 2011/12 so we are hoping we'll be able to offer places to anyone who didn't manage to get onto this year's programme. We will publicise the programme as soon as we reach a decision.

 

As usual, I have continued to work closely with Alison, developing Stage 3 and 4 resources for the website and updating the Stage 3 & 4 Content mapping document.   

I was pleased to welcome Jenny Gage from the MMP to work with us on stemNRICH at Key Stages 3 and 4. Jenny brings lots of experience of cross-curricular matters from, amongst other things, her work on the Motivate video conferences and will add greatly to the finished product. Jenny and I had some very productive meetings with people interested in contributing to stemNRICH at stages 3 and 4. I have put together some stemNRICH - secondary pages where the development will take place. These are very much work in progress, but perhaps you might like to get a feel for what we are up to: we are hoping to get teacher feedback throughout the whole development cycle so that the final resources are both new, stimulating and of practical classroom use.

 

I also put in some work on finalising the analysis of the first phase of my research in to Key Moments in Mathematics Education for exceptionally gifted students, which I will be talking about with Lynne at the CERME conference in Poland next month. Lots of people in the wider educational community seem very interested with the initial findings and we hope that the next phase of the research will involve the input of others in the mathematics education community. Results will be shared on NRICH after the conference.

 

Last term I coordinated a Post-16 level three working group to collate key resources to 'Engage all Learners' for an MA training day in March. This work was completed and a document passed across to the trainer who will lead the training day.

 

On the Olympic theme I did some work with our student Pang Zhao to get some nice activities concerning maths and sport ready in time for the new sport.maths.org pages which are on the way. We will also hopefully use many of these activities for the stemNRICH - secondary pages.

 

The stem teachers network have now completed their initial work on comparing curricula between maths and science. I have now arranged a day - March 10th - for the teachers to come together in Cambridge to share their findings and to plan the development and look and feel of the stemNRICH - secondary pages. I was also pleased that two PGCE students have chosen to use stemNRICH as a focus for their research assignments -- we will be able to make good use of their experiences in creating the teachers notes for the pages. If you would be interested in joining us, please do get in touch. 

 

Finally, although, I was also somewhat saddened during January by the introduction of very large university tuition fees, it did make for an interesting blog post. 

I started the second block of sessions in Tower Hamlets on Thursday afternoons, and these will continue until half term. Our focus this term is on working systematically and convincing ourselves and others with our mathematical reasoning.

 

On January 14th, a group of Year 9 students from Morpeth School in Tower Hamlets came to visit the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, and together with Charlie I led a session working on the problem Tilted Squares - you can see some video footage of our work in the Teachers' Notes.

 

On January 22nd I led my final Masterclass of this year's Cambridge RI Masterclasses series, working with Year 8 students on some of the problems from the NRICH site.

 

I have also been working closely with Charlie and Steve developing problems for the site, as well as continuing with my studies towards the Masters in Maths Education. Keep up with my latest news on my blog or on twitter. 

  

Early in January we welcomed to the Centre for Mathematical Sciences 60 Y7 pupils from the Cambridge Independent/State School Partnership (ISSP) and their teachers. Dr James Grime demonstrated the WW2 Enigma Machine to the enthusiastic group of pupils from Perse Girls' School, Manor, Chesterton, Coleridge and Parkside, and this was followed by Hands-on Maths and Codebreaking workshops.

 

I made my maiden visit to St Mary's School, Hampstead and enjoyed a great day with childen and teachers from Reception to Y4, ably assisted by Y6. It is always a joy to see pupils from different year groups working together on the challenges.

 

My other visits this month have all been returns - 

 

I managed to see around 200 pupils from Y1-Y5 at ACS Egham - my fifth visit to the school, an interesting day as usual, meeting some chldren for a second time. They enjoyed finding new activities to solve and revisiting some old favourites to try to get further with.

 

It was good to be able to get to Ridgeway School in Plymouth again - last year the visit was affected by a heavy snowfall which closed the school, the only day it was closed due to weather!  It was a busy day in school this year as they had a theatre company and the Army for other year groups as well as the Roadshow for Y7 pupils. Two teachers from Ridgeway have also been involved in our Teacher Inspiration days mentioned by Charlie in his news, above.

 

This was followed by a visit to St Bernadette Catholic School in Bristol, working with Y7 - most of the pupils in school have experienced the Roadshow activities as it has been an annual booking for seven years now.  Staff are using a weekly NRICH problem and it was rewarding to see NRICH posters displayed prominently in the Maths corridor.

 

If you are interested in finding out more about the Hands-on Maths Roadshow please see the information on the Millennium Mathematics Project (MMP) website

 

There are a few dates left in March, May and June - I'd be delighted to hear from you to try to organise a visit to your school.