Introducing Learning Mathematics in context

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Introducing Learning Mathematics in context
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Aims (1)

• To reflect on your own experiences with
  Mathematics and how these might inform the way
  you approach teaching the subject with your own
  learners.
• To consider how important Mathematics is in your
  own vocational or subject areas and to identify
  some of the mathematical skills and knowledge
  that might be required by your learners in a
  workplace setting.

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Aims (2)

• To experience an activity that gives a flavour of
  some of the activities in the resource.
• To experience an activity that models the
  reflective and collaborative approach to
  professional development that is embodied in the
  Learning Mathematics in context resource.

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Task 1 Personal mathematical history

• This might include
• courses you have studied
• qualifications you have gained
• approaches that your teachers took to teaching
  Mathematics and your response to those approaches
• significant events that shaped your mathematical
  thinking
• times when Mathematics has been really useful in
  your life
• occasions when you have found some Mathematics
  hard or even impossible and how this was
  resolved.

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Group task

• Form groups of four to six.
• Discuss your individual responses.
• How have your own experiences influenced the way
  you would approach teaching Mathematics? with
  your learners?
• Elect a note-taker to record the key points of
  the discussion on a flipchart.

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Scales

• Form groups of two or three.
• Place the cards onto Sheet 2 so that the scales
  are correct.
• Take turns when placing the cards.
• As you place a pair of cards, explain how you
  reached your decision.
• Use the blank cards to make up your own examples.

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Plenary (1)

• Possible responses
• It is active.
• There is more than one correct answer to each
  problem.
• It encourages learners to talk about Mathematics
  and use mathematical language.
• Learners can choose numbers that are at the right
  level for them. Experience shows that learners
  will usually choose more challenging numbers than
  their teacher will set them.

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Plenary (2)

• Blank spaces and blank cards create more
  opportunities for differentiation.
• It offers a range of mathematical challenges,
  some straightforward and some much trickier.
• The problem can be done either way round - real
  to scale or vice versa.
• Learners can make up their own cards and
  problems.
• It helps to develop mathematical skills that are
  useful across a range of vocational and subject
  areas.

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Mathematics in the workplace

• What mathematical skills and knowledge would be
  important for someone to function effectively in
  this environment?
• Elect a note-taker to record the key points of
  the discussion on a flip chart.

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The importance of Mathematics

• What strategies can you suggest to help learners
  to see the relevance and importance of
  Mathematics in their own lives now and in the
  future?
• Elect a note-taker to record the key points of
  the discussion on a flip chart.