Aaron PS

I'm not sure, but I believe I owe the credits for these lovely questions to @drfrostmaths.bsky.social. In any case, they led to an extremely nice discussion about integration and the limits of what we can and cannot (yet) do. #mathstoday #mathschat

I'm not good at, and do not enjoy, teaching geometric constructions. I find it is such a gear shift from the rest of the curriculum -- and lots of behavioural issues to worry about!

If you wish you had questions you could ask your students to encourage them to use their intuition, then check out this ready to go list from Tracy Zager: tjzager.com/wp-content/uplo...

You can get her book here: amzn.to/4eSBiMY

I'd never thought of that. Indeed, when we talk about the weather also!

Are your students working on parallel and perpendicular lines? Try out these two Open Middle problems from Bryan Anderson:
www.openmiddle.com/equation...
www.openmiddle.com/equation...

The thinking required to do it by a rote method is easier than the thinking required to understand it properly - that's why Science teachers do it that way. If getting to the answer is all that matters, why wouldn't students do it this way? We need to set expectations that it is not all that matters

Couldn't agree more. And we try a lot of this in our school with "Did anyone do it a different way?", "Can we compare these methods?", plus a lot of letting students have a go at questions without giving a method and discussing all attempts - right or 'wrong'. *But* it can feel like a losing battle!

I agree! I think I am a better mathematician because of the weekly mental arithmetic assessments my teacher had us do in Year 9.

#MathsToday

It's teddy bear time!

Plus a nice extension from @openmiddle.com and @robertkaplinsky.com! They really enjoyed this, but only managed if they were allowed to use the same integer more than once. Next time!

More quadratics for Year 11 Fd. It was really interesting noticing how asking for the roots before asking for the factorised form prevented them from forgetting what a root actually is. They started by finding the roots by trial and error, noticing a pattern after a while... #mathschat #mathstoday

I would be very interested in if there is any research on to what extent it is a developmental issue (in which case maybe we should wait before asking them to do it?), and to what extent it is rigid teaching in the first place.

It seems to work in the lesson itself, but is completely lost after. Nor does it seem easy to connect this method to what they can already do using either the formula or the formula triangle from science.

I always, out of principal, "teach what density is", for example. That is, the mass per unit volume and try to get them to calculate mass, volume or density given different values using 'proportion tables'. #mathschat

Do you have an example of a picture you use to try to get this across? I always struggle to teach this unit and I am about to begin a unit on proportional reasoning and lack inspiration.

In #MathsToday a student called out 67 and then another year 9 said "for god's sake". It's even annoying the students who used to say skibidi.

We also did some nice expanding brackets.

In #MathsToday pupils vote which of these were equivalent to the original expression. 1 vote Mario, 15 votes Luigi, 1 vote Bowser and 20 votes Peaches. One pupil explained she voted for Peaches because she just knew you multiply. So we then looked at it expanded and why multiplying works.

Great, thank you! No judging of incomplete or imperfect work from me however. We're all teachers!

Could you please share how you are teaching it? I would be interested to see!

Year 11 Foundation were finding roots today by substituting into quadratics at random. Will they accidentally discover the relationship between a quadratic's roots and factorised form when I queue it up tomorrow? TBD.

#mathschat #mathstoday

I suppose that this presents mostly when you teach mechanics, at A level?

What do you perceive to be the biggest challenges from students having met concepts in science, or elsewhere, before meeting them in maths? Are their problems the other way?

Eg, I find they arrive with a pretty rigid and instrumental understanding of calculating with compound units.

#mathstoday

I wrote a “best guess” paper this evening for GCSE Maths Paper 2 on Friday 7th Nov and filmed a video to go through it. Edexcel Foundation! Hope it’s helpful! static1.squarespace.com/static/67560...

Here's the Maths (KS3/4) pages from the Curriculum Review

Academy of Inquiry Based Learning is an organization focused on improving teaching and learning in higher education mathematics.
www.inquirybasedlearning.org

It’d be great to connect with others exploring agency, inquiry, and meaningful learning in their schools 👋

What’s worked for you or inspired you lately?

#education #teaching #EduSky #edtalk #edreform #globaled

If you’ve seen (or written!) blogs, research articles, or posts that show this being done well, I’d really appreciate pointers. Even small, concrete first steps or examples from your own classrooms would be incredibly useful.

We’re mindful of the pitfalls — “research it yourselves” or "choose what you learn" lessons that seem like inquiry but lack clear objectives, clarity or reflection.

We’re aiming for guided, thoughtful inquiry that builds ownership, curiosity, and reflection rather than unstructured activity.

Our school is starting a project to grow student agency and bring more inquiry-based learning into lessons.

We want it to feel meaningful — helping students think deeply about how they learn, not just what they learn.

I'd love to learn from others doing similar work.

#education #teaching #EduSky

I love teaching quadratics. I find there it makes a lovely closed universe to explore. And we start with factorising! Today, my favourite factorising task with some low-prior attaining Year 11s. They hate how the numbers are "the same", but it gets them thinking. #mathstoday