Group items tagged

"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

The JUMP Math workbooks are meant to be used in conjunction with our extensive Teacher Resources to enable students to practise and explore subtle variations on the lessons and to enable teachers to rapidly assess progress. For each lesson, there is a clear and highly effective lesson plan, which enables teachers to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of teaching to the whole class while tailoring to individual needs. Each lesson is carefully designed to generate deep, subtle, transferable mastery of key concepts. Lesson plans include ideas for contextualizing the math, questions and tasks that allow students to discover mathematical concepts, games, activities, and innovative extension questions that keep "fast" students engaged and learning while teachers help others to master the key objectives.

I'm rubbish at Maths' are words that regularly come out of mouth during my adult life. This fixed mindset is deep rooted. When faced with a Maths challenge I have immediate flashbacks to those bottom set Maths lessons where everyone else were given more complicated problems with bigger numbers to solve. I may have a fixed mindset in terms of my own capabilities, but I believe every child has the capacity to be a fantastic Mathematician, if they are given the opportunity and are encouraged to have the belief in the 'power of yet'.

This is a great YouTube channel with a range of recorded maths lessons aimed at 11-18 year olds. Watch as lessons expertly presented about areas of sectors, probability, simultaneous equations and much more. Check out @mathschallenge for daily maths questions to try out in your class. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

"This is a really good way of testing out practical measuring skills in Maths lessons. I always teach 'measuring' by incorporating a Harry Potter themed Potions lesson. Pupils follow potion recipes to create potions from the Harry Potter universe, e.g. Polyjuice Potion or Skele-gro. I have a mixture of powders (cornflour), plants (herbs) and potions (water with food colouring). I then have pipettes, a range of different containers with different scales for measuring liquids, scales for measuring the plants and powders, in addition to gloves for handling the 'poisonous' plants, a pestle and mortar for the plants and stopwatches for timing."

"Making Every Maths Lesson Count is underpinned by six pedagogical principles - challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning - and presents 52 high-impact strategies designed to streamline teacher workload and ramp up the level of challenge in the maths classroom. Throughout this book, Emma McCrea (through extensive research and practice) explores how to manage mathematical misconceptions with practical ideas on many areas of the required curriculum. The six pedagogical principles mentioned above form the heart of the book, with metacognitive questioning given space in developing cognitive strategies with pupils. "

Math and Science professionals who to into primary teaching in Australia will get half of their student loan forgiven.

In Australia, they are taking an initiative to get more math and science graduates into primary teaching -- those who do so will have a 50% refund on their loan payments. This in response to a study in July from the National Numeracy Review that "concluded that systematic teaching of numeracy in the early years of schooling, in maths lessons and across the wider curriculum, was essential if these trends were to be reversed." I find this interesting and hope that it will encourage people who love math and science AND STUDENTS will accept. Just a geek doesn't mean you love students or want to teach them.

Excellent math resource for primary school age. Can set up resources for class to use, whiteboard resources, games, schedule the lessons you want students to take.

Interactive whiteboards (IWB) allow science and math teachers to teach multi-sensory lessons, seamlessly jumping from one type of media to another. Interactive science or math lessons can easily integrate text, sound, video, and graphics based on the tactile nature of the IWB.

"A talking mat to encourage reasoning in maths lessons through oracy. The mat features a range of sentence stems to guide children."

Get a new maths question to solve every day of the year with this superb site. It's great for lesson starters and the answer and explanation can be shown with the click of a button. Search questions for other dates by clicking the link at the bottom of the screen. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

This site provides games for different mathematic concepts as well as a link to prealgebra lessons.

Encouraging students to use critical thinking is more than an extension activity in science and math lessons, it is the basis of true learning. Teaching students how to think critically helps them move beyond basic comprehension and rote memorization. They shift to a new level of increased awareness when calculating, analyzing, problem solving, and evaluating.

Truly love your list of extended queries to extend our queries thanks David.

Hosted by Dr Junaid Mubeen and Fiona Goddard. This webinar reveals simple strategies for adding sparkle to your lessons to help engage and amaze Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 students with maths.

"This is a maths resource that can be used to challenge pupils to complete a magic square, using only the numbers provided, to make sure that each row, column and diagonal all add up to the focused magic number. The resource provided challenges students to add up to 9, 12, 15 & 18, and could be used as a homework challenge, an additional classroom activity, or as a main activity within a maths lesson. Challenge pupils to work on two different methods for each magic number. This activity could be adapted with larger number, and other mathematic operations"

Here are some lesson plans using Mouse Mischief. In particular I think the Angles lesson plan would be interesting for math teachers but there is also one on apostrophes, colors (for ESL students) and a science one on carnivores, omnivores and herbivores.

Eliminating math misconceptions is difficult and merely repeating a lesson or extra practice will not help. Telling students were they are mistaken will not work either. Recognizing student misconceptions and immediately focusing on the misconception is important. Providing guiding questions using inductive reasoning is the best approach, along with the use of writing prompts which help reveal further student misconceptions.

LiveBinders is a web 2.0 tool which provides the ability to save and organize materials for your science or math class. The great thing about this free tool is that you can update the resources instantly to ensure your lessons include the latest ideas, tips, and resources in science and math.

Like everything else on the Internet, trying to find images is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Without the right tools for finding science and math images on the web it is often an impossible, or at least mind-numbing, task. What is needed are search engines which make the job easier. This is where the tips and tricks provided below help this seemingly impossible task by using the top search Web 2.0 search engines and tools available today. These are valuable resources for both you and your students when trying to find just the right image for lesson or project involving digital media.