I’ve really been thinking hard about how I teach maths as a result of the MaST course and other triggers. I’m aware that I’m probably quite old fashioned and the children do more ‘traditional’ maths than is probably good for them. I’ve tried to make lessons a lot more relevant and include my pupils as much as possible in the teaching.
However today was a day for really working on addition. It was a fairly traditional ‘chalk and talk’ intro followed by examples for them to complete independently that got progressively harder. They could use any of the three methods I had demonstrated but that was the only element of choice there was.
And guess what? Everyone in my group of 35 loved it! They worked quietly and industriously and really got on well. Problems were dealt with quickly and the children seemed to really understand what they were doing. At the end of the lesson there were various comments of ‘that was great’, ‘I really enjoyed that’ and ‘Can we do that again tomorrow?’
So why am I spending all this time on making my maths lessons more whizzy and interactive when all they want is to sit down quietly and do a page of sums???
Answers on a postcard?
And yes, I do really know why all the other stuff is important but it does make you wonder sometimes.
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