Transcript Engaging Mathematics For All Learners

Thinking
mathematically through games
If you ask mathematicians what they do, you
always get the same answer. They think.
M. Egrafov
6 + 4 = 10
10 take away 9 makes 1
1 add 17 is 18
18……
Competitive aim – stop your partner
from going
Collaborative aim – cross off as many
as possible
What’s the longest chain?
Is it possible to strike them all out?
If so how?
If not why not?
 What is the mathematical knowledge that
is needed to play?
 Who would this game be for?
 What is the value added of playing the
game?
 Could you adapt it to use it in your
classroom?
Low threshold high ceiling
 Accessible to all at the start
 Plenty of supporting activity for those who
benefit from it
 Lots of opportunities for challenge for
those who decide they are ready for it
 Lots of opportunities for teacher to tweak
both the mathematical knowledge needed
and the mathematical thinking
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Children can do more than you think
Children’s own problems
Importance of talk and questioning
Children as mathematicians
‘Effective teaching requires practitioners to
help children see themselves as
mathematicians. For children to become
(young) mathematicians requires creative
thinking, an element of risk-taking,
imagination and invention - dispositions
that are impossible to develop within the
confines of a work-sheet or teacher-led
written mathematics.’ Worthington and
Curruthers 2007
Conditions for learning
Valuing mathematical thinking
Creative climate and conjecturing
atmosphere
Purposeful activity and discussion
Purposeful activity
Give the pupils something to do, not
something to learn; and if the doing is of
such a nature as to demand thinking;
learning naturally results.
John Dewey
Liz Woodham
[email protected]
Bernard Bagnall
[email protected]
Fran Watson
[email protected]
nrich.maths.org