End of semester ramblings

*M* is about to turn into an exam invigilator. Beware, beware, for her eye is sharper than the sword.

Good luck everyone, I know you can all make it.

Good intentions for the semester to come...how to learn from my mistakes and move on

- ***Planning

Take advantage of October to do all the planning for next semester. Brainstorm creative teaching ideas, such as cooperative work, cross-curricular activities, games and interactive review sessions well in advance.

- ***Checking

Organise paper-checking into Excel spreadsheets to facilitate formative assessment. Refine the marking system and communicate it to the kids in a constructive way.

- ***Time optimization

Make better use of my school time to benefit from my colleague’s advice, as opposed to getting fits at home while writing worksheets.

- ***Classroom management

…Be tougher on grade 8 students who have been walking all over me at some point. I don’t want to get nasty but I’ll have to adopt a harder line with them.

Now, let's get on with this exam preparation. Off we go :)

Thursday's fun - News from Mathslands

*** This is awfully exciting. I haven't poked my nose into a book about particles physics for quite some time, but the last LHC experiment made history and brought me back on the scientific track. Here is something you might want to read: Special report by the New Scientist.

*** Thailand's political roller-coaster is taking twists and turns these days. Our dearest PM got temporarily sacked for appearing in two cooking shows on Thai TV and getting paid for it - mind you. I never expected Thai politics to be nearly as entertaining as French politics but they got me on that one.

Wednesday's story

With one of my grade 7 classes, we were discussing powers of 10, and we had built a whole scale, from ten up to one million, using decimal and exponential notation. When we reached the point where they had to express 1 in exponential notation, most of the students were perplexed. I guided them through the process of inferring from the sequence of previous exponents what the next exponent should logically be and managed to elicit 10⁰. It gave them food for thought because they have probably been warned time and time again against the uncanny properties of zero and most of them had rather not fret with that moody animal too much. Some did venture out and stripped this surprising 0 up there, changing the base, scratching their little heads until the substance emerged. Whatever base they tried, raising it to the power 0 gave 1! And A. went timidly, in his characteristic manner: ’Teacher, what about infinity? Does infinity raised to the power 0 equal 1 as well?’

This was one of the best questions I’ve had over the past few months. This kid, A., is passionate about big numbers and the concept of infinity just blows his mind. I caught him writing the symbol for infinity all over his notebooks. Some can’t live without mangas, others feel for infinity…each to their own!

Tuesday's tip

Dear mysterious visitors,

Over the coming weeks, I am on a mission to teach grade 9 students how to manipulate Linear inequalities in one variable. None of the textbooks I normally refer to for good ideas and strategies are very eloquent on the subject so I thought I would ask the maths blogging community for some help.
I was thinking of setting up some activities for the students to get a feel of what inequalities are all about and why the rules we learn apply to this and that case but I don't really know where to start.

I've searched the internet, without much success so far. However, I've come across this on how2teachmath.com:

"The way I like to do this is to give students inequalities and then have them check 10 to 15 points. I then have them plot the true points in one color and the false in another. Eventually the students will begin to see the pattern. This is a very good activity to be done in cooperative groups. It can also be done by giving the students a range and asking them to find 5 true and 5 false points. This gives the students more sense of ownership in the problem and can lead to them developing their own way to solve the problem."

What do you think about this approach? Have you ever tried it out with your kids? Your suggestions would be much appreciated.

Have a lovely day,

*M*

First ramblings

Welcome to my brand new blog! I am not a newcomer to the blogging scene but I've decided to go more professional and discuss my life and moods as a maths teacher. I have embraced the teaching profession a few months ago and I am looking at ways to improve myself, share tips and geeky jokes with colleagues, or whatever comes up.

I am happy to have you on board, mysterious visitors. Feel free to comment, go wild and have fun.

Mathematically yours,

*M*