Welcome to the first blog post on my Engaging Maths site! I thought I’d try setting up a website that will host some of my resources, thoughts, videos, ideas and anything else I think of! I hope you enjoy 🙂
This year, for the first time, I volunteered to teach one of my primary mathematics units during the summer school session. That meant that I had to begin teaching in the first week of January….a shock to the system. As challenging as it was to summon my enthusiasm, the first week has been excellent and working with keen pre-service primary teachers has got me thinking about all the teachers still on holidays. Most of you would have already started thinking about and perhaps planning for your new class in 2015. I wonder if anyone made a new year’s resolution relating to teaching? I always enjoyed that period of planning new things to do with a fresh group of students, in fact, I still do, but it’s at the tertiary level. This year I am committed to integrating even more technology into teaching and learning, and making more use of the mobile technologies that students bring with them. Having said that, I need to make sure my use of technology is going to enhance what I do, and not distract students.
Can I use technology to make mathematics more relevant, and can this be replicated in primary mathematics classrooms? I think the answer is yes! An example of how I have done this occurred two days ago with my university students through the use of a maths trail. If you don’t know what a maths trail is, it’s really like an outdoor adventure/treasure hunt where students are taken out of the school environment and using maps, photographs, and all sorts of equipment, get to follow a trail and do some really engaging, relevant and real life mathematics activities. Here is an example from the maths trail I have designed at the UWS Bankstown campus based on the giant rabbit sculpture that sits outside the pre-school on campus (the students are provided with a photograph to help them find the site):
Somewhere on campus is a giant rabbit…..can you locate it?
- How many times bigger than a normal rabbit do you think it is? Explain the mathematics you used to work this out?
- If the university wanted to build a sculpture of a human adult to stand beside the rabbit, how tall would the sculpture have to be? Use your iPad to record the group’s working out and your findings.
Once the students have finished the maths trail and are back in the classroom, a follow-up activity based on the giant rabbit tasks is provided along with a QR Code:
If two newborn rabbits (one male and one female) are put in a pen, how many rabbits would be in the pen after one year? How many would be in the pen after 18 months?
Use the QR Code for extra help: 
That is just one example of a number of different maths trail ‘stations’. The task above could be replicated in any number of ways, with many benefits for students and teachers. First, the original maths trail tasks require students to apply their knowledge, understanding, and higher order thinking skills rather than complete a simple computation or regurgitate a set of rules or facts. Secondly, the tasks are open-ended, allowing for creativity. The use of the iPad on site to record students’ responses promotes discussion and the use of mathematical language, and takes away the burden of having to use pen and paper to record absolutely everything – it can all be done on one device. Extending the task through the use of an interesting problem and some help (you need to access the QR code), allows you to promote sustained engagement.
So that’s one way I have kept my new year’s resolution to incorporate more technology into the teaching and learning of mathematics….more ideas coming soon!
Engaging Maths 