Maths Locke

That sounds amazing!

My workout app told me I'd lifted total weight equivalent to a truck today.

Having context for a skill makes the skill acquisition feel more meaningful.

I apparently like my EdD enough that even though I decided not to do any reading today I still read half a chapter of Research Methods 8th ed and made pretty notes. As a treat.

Made it two days in a row with "self care not self indulgence" of going to the gym and cooking a decent dinner. Also lighting my fancy candle.

Had an epiphany today about self care Vs self indulgence.

Self care is going to the gym. Self indulgence is becoming one with the sofa.

If anyone was thinking of getting a SIGNED copy of The Mathematicians' Library for someone for Christmas, I have 42 copies ready and raring to go: £25 (+ £5 delivery in the UK unless you can pick it up from Milton Keynes).

As always, a boost of this post would be much appreciated 😁

Teacher Tapp swag!
I love @teachertapp.bsky.social and their daily questions. It helps me feel connected to my profession.

Opened a suitcase to pack for an overnight stay and SPIDERS. Some nest of baby spiders just started flowing out. No thank you.

Related questions: "How do I get yr 10 to care early on about understanding the work?" And "What happened earlier on that means yr 11 need intervention?" "What makes a student grade 5 ready?"

Learning how to research is important
So much of life depends on what questions you ask and how you frame them.

As HoD, I've been asking "how do I get more 4+ in yr 11?" But now I'm asking "How do I use yr 9 to get all students 4+ ready?" Changes perspective and data and actions.

EdD: Research into research paradigms Clarke 2021 paper talks about how they are essentially the way in which the researcher perceives reality.

Making it really hard to decide my own paradigm because now I have to figure out how I perceive reality. Bit deep for half term.

EdD day. Interrupted by cat who apparently really cares about ontological stances.

Looking forward to seeing what white working-class maths looks like

Colourful worksheet with four columns. Title is "write the operation applied to both sides".

Introduced my Year 7s to solving equations this week. Made a worksheet to focus on the single skill of identifying the inverse operation for each one-step equation. It also got students used to writing the operation on BOTH sides.

#Mathschat #MathsToday #AusMathsChat

Same & Different Calculus prompts: Definite integral of x^2 from -1 to 1 vs x^3 Definite integral of x^3 from 0 to 1 vs from -1 to 0 Integrals of sin(x) vs x•sin(x) vs x•sin(x^2)

These are excellent & love the name too (like @mrlevmaths.bsky.social) !

I do "Same & Different" as a prompt, here are some integrals from my calculus-focused post -- which has Catriona's examples included at the end of the post.
#MathsToday #iTeachMath

karendcampe.wordpress.com/2023/03/03/s...

Looky-likeys is such a good word for them - some of my favourite sets of questions to write!

Six similar- looking integrals. The sixth one is the integral of 1/(x^2+4)

Y13 did their first set of integration looky-likeys in #MathsToday. Looking forward to lots more of this in the next few weeks!

The last one was a bit mean (I put it there to slow down the fast finishers) but they did manage it when I gave them the right substitution. #ALevelMaths

In #MathsToday I gave my yr 11 their @hannahkettlemaths.bsky.social homework papers. I may have engineered it slightly so I gave out papers 6 and 7. Let the stupid tiktok meme work for you not against you.

In #MathsToday I remembered the variationtheory website and so my year 9 had a storming lesson through order of operations. I loved the task that was just "what calculation is the first calculation". Really helped them grasp it.

Oh I love that!

Especially the follow on why/why not questions! Thank you for sharing, I'm glad the session helped.

Yr 13 topic test update: I realised they need to work on their tests so now they have a calendar event "bad test resit" where I will give them their worst test and they have to get best marks on it in test conditions. I am not telling them which topic test.

"I'll give yr 13 topic tests so I can spot their weaknesses"

"Oh no I have to mark 16 tests"

Predictable but also now I have to mark 16 normal distribution tests as well as GCSE mocks.

Walking talking mock

In #MathsToday I did a WTM with my yr 11. They were shook at how many questions could be done with ratio tables. I need to actually make a resource that is just ratio tables in different contexts now.

#mathstoday
I've had in the past students finding it difficult to decide if an expression would factorise into a single or double bracket. So I created a mix of 20 questions to try and build that skill of deciding which one to use. Unsurprisingly a lot of them struggled. Better now than an exam!

I play a lot of simulation games - balance the numbers to optimise. But then that's more recreational economics for me.

I do occasionally grab my book of step problems for a laugh.

Exams officer wants you

Absolutely loved your session! My department are going to be spending time creating question sets for sure. I never really appreciated how good it is for PD until you talked about it.

A huge thank you to everyone who attended #MathsConf39!

It was fantastic to see so many passionate maths educators coming together to share ideas, resources, and inspiration. Events like this remind us how powerful collaboration can be in shaping better experiences for our students.

#UKMathsChat

Realising today how bad at branding myself I am - didn't even include my handle on my slides!

#MathsConf39

I'm grateful to everyone who came to my session today and had a go at creating joyfully difficult questions for their classes.