Fractions

Primary parents are always asking about ways of teaching fractions. The main thing I tell them is to spend time with their kids and work through their own thinking. One of their main concerns is that they do it differently to the teacher and don't want to get their child confused.

I relate to this as many times as teachers we have to think if we have broken it down far enough to promote thinking. Sometimes having a framework is handy with steps to teaching a concept or skill. Here's an ebook that does that (it's not perfect but it could help).

There are many other ebooks on mathematics found here

Happy and sad event

The guys on the Plato website today have announced that they will be winding it down stating that Platowa had achieved its objectives. I think all of us in the teaching profession in WA have a big thank you to say to these guys and what they have achieved over the last four years (especially in making the union a relevant body again). If Marko was president of the SSTUWA even a hardened anti-unionist like myself would join.

It has been amazing to watch technology used in a way that achieves an outcome, and equally amazing to see people put their jobs on the line over an ideal and principle. Agree with them or not you have to appreciate their efforts. It will be interesting to see if a lobby group like this will ever again be as powerful within the teaching fraternity (are you watching this space MAWA?).

If and when Plato is retired, I will miss reading the forum about WA education from the minds of teachers, parents and interested parties. Without it, we would not have seen into the politics of teaching. I am glad that they feel they have achieved what they set out to do. It is rare in life that we have time to reflect upon actually reaching our goals.

Four days to go...

The countdown is on to the next break.. four days to go.

The last week of term is a time of wind down, with students in upper school focusing on their ball on Thursday and those in year ten disappearing on holidays before the end of term.

I'll gather in the last of the test results from this term and celebrate getting through another week eight of term. For me, week eight is always a milestone, each week eight signals getting through the goals of a term and getting that much better at teaching.

One interesting experience last week was a student that despised my teaching method last year actually sitting for two hours with me conquering a topic - at her request. Hopefully she can keep this up - it would be wonderful if she could, the re-engagement of a student into education is something that should be celebrated, too often students are lost in year 10, on the verge of starting a run at university. It signalled what we all know deep down, that a student should never be given up on, you need to be on the lookout for ways and means to repair damaged rapports.

The last week was a good one, with many signs of students understanding what senior school is all about, smiles and students seeing success in their progress.

I'm really looking forward to the break.. and some baby time. She's growing up so fast. Now that we've figured out that the expressed bottle is causing the colic.. she's another baby (and a wee bit quieter and happier!)

We reached a few milestones with the blog too, 1100 visitors this year (the same amount as the whole of last year) and over 3300 pages read. Many thanks to those that have left words of encouragement.

:-)

Three steps forward...

There are times when I wonder, 'what have we been doing for the last two weeks?' My year tens are at this stage right now. We've been going through linear algebra for two weeks and it's clearly beyond a good dose of my students.

There are a number of issues:
a) They have weak self esteem and give up before trying
b) They have a low work ethic
c) Their algebra skills are weak-non existent (transposing to find c in y=mx+c is heartbreaking)
d) Their operations are weak (explaining gradient in terms of rise/run leads to all sorts of issues)
e) Their understanding of negative numbers is suspect

So I have two choices, teach them the topic and hope that the students get something from it to help them on their next iteration of learning or try and fill the gaps that 9 teachers before me have tried to fill with limited success.

Current thinking would say cater to individual differences and backtrack. I'm not sure that this is the right thing to do. By teaching the topic it gives the students an opportunity to 'get the gist' of what is being achieved (associate linear algebra with lines and equations, learn about gradient and slope, be able to find the y intercept and the like) and then hope that when they do 1B or 2A next year they can use this knowledge to properly participate in class.

I don't know.