Improving Learning in Mathematics 7th East Midlands post-16 Subject Coaching Network Ray Sutton : Regional Coordinator (EM)

2 Objectives  Share good practice in teaching, learning and professional development in the region.  Consider ways in which lesson plans can be developed effectively.  Explore the National Centre portal as a focus for professional development  Develop an understanding of functional mathematics in practice.  Reflect on opportunities for developing collaborative professional learning in our organisations and through networking.  Model a range of coaching skills to create a sustainable and supportive network for all.

3 Principles of effective teaching  Build on the knowledge learners bring to sessions.  Expose and discuss misconceptions.  Develop effective questioning.  Use cooperative small group work.  Emphasise methods rather than answers.  Use rich collaborative tasks.  Create connections between mathematical topics.  Use technology in appropriate ways. From Professional Development Guide, Sheet PD1.4

4 Factors contributing to high achievement Ofsted report ‘ Evaluating mathematics provision for year olds ’, May2006. “ The DFES should: continue to invest in the dissemination of the successful approaches to teaching and learning developed through the Standards Unit ’ s framework for mathematics, with particular emphasis on collaborative professional development across mathematics departments ”

The NCETM Portal Post to a community Write a blog (eg on WWW) Add to the Mathemapedia Try out the self evaluation tool Look at the exemplified professional framework

6 Functional mathematics Links with the STEM agenda (EM STEMNET steering group set up) Links with the Leitch report and ‘World Class Skills’ Important for employability, adults and young people, all providers of education and training “A major campaign to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teaching in schools is needed.” – Sainsbury

What sort of questions would you ask of learners? What are the modelling issues?

10 New publication education and skills functional skills support programme- “Teaching and learning functional mathematics” Placed for you in the East Midlands community on the portal.

11 It is important to recognise that the ‘levelness’ of a functional skill is determined by a combination of factors: the complexity of the situation or problem the learner is tackling the familiarity to the learner of the situation or problem the technical demand of the skill required the independence of the learner in identifying and selecting the skills they will need, and in tackling the situation or problem.

12 September2007 Three-year pilot (approximately 1000 centres) of functional English, mathematics and ICT in a range of contexts, including stand-alone. September2008 All three functional skills trialled within the first tranche of Diplomas (construction and the built environment, creative and media, engineering, society health and development, IT). September2010 Functional English, mathematics and ICT available nationally

13 For teachers, helping learners to become functional in mathematics means helping them to: recognise situations in which mathematics can be used make sense of these situations describe the situations using mathematics analyse the mathematics, obtaining results and solutions interpret the mathematical outcomes in terms of the situation communicate results and conclusions.

14 Mrs Newman has five children. Three of them are girls. Two of them are boys. The children buy chocolate eggs to give to each other. Each girl gives each boy a red egg. Each boy gives each girl a yellow egg. Each girl gives each of the other girls a blue egg. Each boy gives each of the other boys a green egg. 1. How many eggs of each colour do the children buy? The children who live next door use the same rules for giving eggs.They buy 8 red eggs, 8 yellow eggs, 2 blue eggs and 12 green eggs. 2. How many girls and how many boys live next door? (Problem designed by Rita Crust and the MARS/Shell Centre team at the universities of Nottingham and Durham. Published in Developing problem solving – representing: using diagrams, tables and graphs (2005) nferNelson,

15 Representing Making sense of situations and representing them Analysing Processing and using the mathematics Interpreting Interpreting and communicating the results of the analysis

16 Finding the inspiration leries/stpancras_dev_gallery.shtml?1

17 Learning by taking action ‘I have done this’, ‘I would like to do this’, ‘I would not feel comfortable doing this’ and N/A – use sparingly