May 9 2017

Underground Maths: Prepare for the new A Level

This will be so helpful for our preparation for the new A Level, I particularly like the Resource suggestions.

For each content statement, Underground Maths have suggested up to three rich resources and up to three Review questions. Each suggestion is hyperlinked to take you directly to the resource on the Underground Mathematics site. Resources that are particularly good at supporting the overarching theme of Mathematical modelling have been highlighted.

These of course are suggestions. There are so many outstanding resources on Underground Maths. In our department, like many others I am sure we will be exploring the resources and bookmarking our own favourites.

I have a series of pages on Underground Mathematics. This is a work in progress and I will be adding more content over the coming weeks. Some of my many favourites are on these pages…

Introduction
Underground Maths: Prepare for the new A Level
Video Tutorials & How to Guide
Building Blocks
Review Questions GCSE 9-1
Coordinate Geometry
Subcollections :You can very easily organise your resources on Underground Maths

Follow Underground Mathematics on Twitter or Facebook.
Note there is also a closed Facebook Group for teachers. We’d love to hear which Underground Maths resources you’ve been using, share your thoughts, ask questions or show your students work for discussion.

Jan 29 2017

Coordinate Geometry – Underground Maths

Exploring Algebra Review Questions from Underground Mathematics I came across some Coordinate Geometry questions I really like and yesterday spending a day with the very talented writing team and my fellow Underground Mathematics Champions we explored Straight Line Pairs, a question with much scope for exploration and possible methods of solution.

The image above has been created from the Printable/supporting materials.

My Year 11s will be looking at Coordinate Geometry this week and I have some other questions I would like them to try. It is possible to create pdf files for a collection of questions, see Saving Favourite Resources, one of Underground Mathematics’ How To Videos. (See the tutorials page I have in the Underground Maths series of pages – a work in progress).

coordinate-geometry-resource-collection

You will find a whole collection of such questions if you look at Geometry of Equations. This includes many resources including Review questions. Note the Building Blocks resources. I think I’ll be using Underground Mathematics resources with ever younger students – Year 9 can try Lots of Lines! You will see from the the supporting materials that this has come from the brilliant Standards Unit (A10) collection. Students must sort the lines into six pairs, each pair matching one of the given descriptions.

Staying with the Building Blocks I do like Straight Lines where students must decide which of 17 equations are equations of a straight line.
Look at the list – a wonderful lesson in not jumping to conclusions here! Both my Year 9 and my Year 11 are going to be trying these this week!

$ax^2+2hxy+by^2=0$ .

Straight Lines reminded me of Line Pairs, I feel an extension for Year 11 coming on!

Jan 22 2017

Underground Mathematics Algebra Review Questions

Underground Mathematics provides such an outstanding collection of resources that I have begun to create a series of pages on the site. The resources are not only good for Advanced Level but for GCSE students too, particularly for students aiming at the very highest grades. This series of pages is very much a work in progress which I will be updating regularly.

I have used many of the Review questions for my able GCSE students. As you can see from the descriptions of resorce types, the review questions are ideal for the new GCSE specifications as they have been selected to test students’ understanding of one or more topics and to exercise their problem-solving skills. The questions which have been chosen require non-routine thinking. You can browse all the Review questions or narrow your search by question type; note the O/AO-level questions which are questions from old papers. One can also search by line ( Number, Geometry, Algebra, Functions or Calcuus) and by Station.

If you create an account you can easily save and organise your favourite resources. This list of favourites can be easily downloaded as a csv file. To further organise your favourites you can create subcollections.

This too is a work in progress, I will create a collection of resources I believe are particularly useful for GCSE. I have several Algebra favourites so far. This Excel file has hyperlinks to all the resources shown here. algebra-gcse-9-1. Alternatively this pdf file also has the relevant hyperlinks. algebra-gcse-9-1

Dec 13 2016

Circles Station

The home of the Teddy Bear and a whole lot more! The wonderful Underground Maths site has a whole new station – Circles.

Really challenge your students with the resources here.

I rather like this review question on circles:
Can we show that these four points lie on a circle?

Good for A level mathematicians – also for my Year 11 Level 2 Further Maths Students.

And of course – Desmos to illustrate.

This diagram could make a rather nice starter…

See all posts in Underground Mathematics.

Nov 15 2016

Circles & Teddy Bears!

Select Posters & Flyers for poster

Cambridge University’s Underground Mathematics is an outstanding resource for teachers of students age 16-19 and I believe will be an important source of ideas for teaching the new Advanced Level specifications.

There are various posters and flyers available including these teddy bears discussing circles!

I regularly feature favourite resources; here’s a great way to look at circles! The teddy bear! As with all the resources on Underground mathematics much more than just the problem is available; note the printable/ supporting materials for the teddy bear problem. Note also that this problem features in Resources in Action, see this extensive teacher support on using The teddy bear in the classroom. For more on Circles – see the Circles Station.