Back to School!

This post will be updated for the return to school 2013-2014.

Happy New Academic Year to the students!

Many schools have already started and the new school year is underway.

I always find the beginning of the new school year is a great time to think about how I want my classes to be; a post I like a great deal is ‘What Kind Of Restaurant Is Your Classroom?‘ by David Anderson and Lee Pace. I’d like to think my classroom is more gourmet than fast food!

Certainly a variety of activities is required and plenty are available online, I have added a page ‘Problems and Activities‘ under ‘I’m Looking For…‘ which includes a variety of sites with excellent and varied resources. If you want to vary the way you start and end lessons try Mathematics Starters, see also a huge collection of ideas in Mike Gershwin’s Starter Generator. TES have a collection for new teachers which I think will be valuable to any teacher, note the Assessment for Learning Toolkit; good feedback is essential for our students’ learning. As well as a variety of activities questions should be planned carefully to include questions demanding higher order thinking skills – it’s all to easy to ask the simple recall type questions.