See also: Problems and Activities
Pondering a question on Twitter I realised that I always have a few sites I rely on where I know I can always find something. So I thought I’d pick a random example to illustrate.
So – constructions, for demonstrations I always use John Page’s Math Open Reference, his demonstrations are so clear and can be shown step by step; students can also be given the website so they can access them themselves. I found this many years ago when I wanted some demonstrations for constructions – a Google search returned it as the first entry!
Math Open Ref – Bisecting an Angle
So obviously we need some questions / activities. Where to look – our textbooks are fine – plenty of questions there, but what else is available?
On Nrich, try a search by topic facility to find all the resources for a particular topic; searching on constructions there are several resources returned.
Nrich – triangle construction
CIMT – I don’t think CIMT have ever failed me! One can actually do a Google search such as CIMT constructions to very quickly find resources. It is worth being familiar with the site so you know what is where; I would always check the Year 7, 8 and 9 material and also the GCSE course. In this case, the Year 9 resources include Unit 12 on Constructions and loci. As well as the text we have all the supplementary teacher resources. Note that for some Teacher Resources you will need the CIMT password.
I often find Nrich and CIMT more than sufficient and
I want to spend time planning my lesson and thinking about my students’ learning and how I’m going to help them understand and make it stick.
And how will I know what they know?
So of course quality resources are key but I don’t want to spend too much time looking for them if it stops me spending sufficient time on the above. I believe it is very worthwhile to have a few key sources so you can find something efficiently and quickly.
Having said that, since this post is on finding resources I’ll mention a few more!
The old Exemplification examples for Key Stage 3 have some very useful example. In this case use the Geometry and Measures document and do a search for constructions.
Teachit Maths though a subscription site offers its entire collection of activities as pdfs free. A search on constructions returns a small number of resources including a good card sort.
I’ll finish with Craig Barton’s and Simon Woodhead’s wonderful Diagnostic questions site. (Select this link for all posts on Diagnostic Questions, these include some instructions for use and other resources for rich questions.) Start typing construction into the search box and various choices will be returned.
See also: Problems and Activities
Fantastic post Colleen–finally got to it, but well worth the wait! We have some favorites in common but I love how you broke down your search for resources.
Thank you Colleen for your excellent suggestions. As an NQT I am getting ready for September and consider using Complete Mathematics by La Salle Education in planning and assessment
http://lasalle-education.com/index.php/complete-mathematics. Do you know if it has been used successfully by any teachers?
My idea is to use their software and quizzes in conjunction with frequent formative testing based on spaced learning and interleaved practice, as according to research they seem to enhance long-term memory retention.
Have you perhaps come across any specific software system which can help teachers use spaced learning and interleaved practice on a rolling basis? Thank you.
Hi Anna – I have not used Complete Mathematics so cannot comment; my blog is about free resources only. Do you know of the Maths Conferences (free) organised by La Salle? http://www.mathsconf.com/. Do you use Twitter – that could be a good place to ask. I think you could use the ideas of spaced learning and interleaved practice without a specific software system.
Memory and making things stick is an interest of my own as you will see from various posts.
I wish you the very best in your teaching career – it’s a great job!
Coleen, thank you so much. I will take a closer look at your blog as there is a wealth of information there and will be going to la Salle’s conference on June the 20th! Thank you for your help.
See you June 20th then!
This is an amazingly useful info! Thank you. It would also be great to find a maths site where each topic would have a progressive sequence of questions (based on Bloom’s or SOLO’s taxonomy) to help with the planning process. Any ideas?
Anna you are right – planning for questions is so important. Have you seen the
NCETM booklet of questions I have linked to on this page?
https://colleenyoung.wordpress.com/2012/07/07/rich-questions-in-mathematics/
For questions I would also recommend the Diagnostic Questions site because the questions address misconceptions.
Nrich is good in that it has teachers’ notes with each activity which I find often help me come up with questions.