Last week,  I mentioned Craig Barton’s two latest websites; Maths Venns and SSDD Problems – Same Surface, Different Deep Structure maths problems. Read more on the website.

I was amused by Craig’s tweet to see that it’s not just himself, his wife and his Mum using his SSDD Problems website!  Take a look at the many problems now available.  The menu on the right is helpful for finding problems. I rather like f(x) and g(x). The topic menu offers the chance to find more problems on functions; try function notation.

For Chalkdust Magazine, Rob Eastaway thinking outside (and inside!) the box with the nine dot puzzle and extensions.
Don Steward has also featured this classic puzzle in his post, Dot Connecting.

I often update posts, particularly very popular ones. As people bookmark the original I want the original address to be unchanged. I thought I would add a new indicator to show when a post has been updated. Here we have for example – Functions.

Stuart Price (right-click once you have followed the link and you will be able to save the image) has very helpfully mapped legacy A Level questions to the Further Mathematics Core specification. This has also added to Mapping Documents, part of the A Level Reform series.

On Saint Patrick’s Day, (check Wolfram Alpha anniversaries and more for March 17th) it seems appropriate to have a look at Project Maths, an Irish site supporting Mathematics teachers. Looking at the teacher area, many resources are available. The traditional Leaving Certificate examination is the terminal examination of post-primary education and is taken when students are typically 17 or 18 years of age. These  teacher resources are for this group of students. A site well worth exploring, looking at Algebra we see for example under expressions:

• Pack of visual linear patterns
• Pack of visual quadratic patterns

The student resources include many activities with accompanying GeoGebra files.

These whiteboard templates caught my eye, simply download the file, project it onto your whiteboard, use the interactive menu to choose the background you need and start writing!

Project Maths Ireland – Whiteboard Templates

A series of resource updates this week…

Edexcel Worksheets – Codebreaker from @Just_Maths

The Problems and Activites series of pages, still a work in progress in the never-ending quest to make things easier to find, has had several updates, including a new page dedicated to the many excellent teaching resources from the Examination Boards. All the examination boards have excellent teaching resources.

The Problems and Activities Links page is just that, a simple list with brief descriptions. Further detail of resources can be found on the Problems and Activities Resources page. Further resources will be added in the coming weeks.

A new addition to the Examination Board resources is the result of the collaboration between MEI and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET); a set of maths resources.  This set of 20 KS4 activities have been created, aiming to:

• address a range of GCSE Mathematics content
• promote the development of reasoning and problem solving skills
• make connections with engineering contexts and/or settings
• promote student discussion and communication

MEI – IET Project Resources

Updates are regularly made to the 16+ Resources series of pages where you can find excellent teaching resources for this age group.

AQA has recently published a particularly valuable document, a commentary on their specimen papers, in which Dan Rogan, Chair of Examiners, explains how the specimen papers were created and how mark schemes will be applied.

Note the new and very clear mark schemes which include a typical solution on the right-hand side. These will be very helpful for students. The document all includes information on how the use of calculators will be assessed.

The AQA page on specifications has been updated accordingly.

Maths Venns – Craig Barton

Checking the tweets from Maths Conference 14, held in Kettering, note that Craig Barton has created a website SSDD Problems – Same Surface, Different Deep Structure maths problems. Read more on the website and you could get involved. Craig has created another new website Maths Venns; I have mentioned his excellent Venn activities before, they now have a dedicated website.