Android | Mathematics, Learning and Technology

This week in class…

Year 7 – ClassDojo
Year 7 and I have decided to try ClassDojo this year. ClassDojo is a classroom tool that helps teachers record student behavior quickly and easily. Feedback points for specific behaviors can be awarded. (This is completely free). The class were very keen and this is our class decision not mine. The beauty of ClassDojo is the ease with which you can customise it. We discussed all the various categories we could have for points and have some great suggestions, points for marking and correcting work clearly for example and for asking great questions. We can also link this with our engagement with learning criteria used in school. We discussed the negative behaviours and decided that we should have anything which stops them learning either in or out of class, ‘off task’, or ‘no homework’ for example. We have far more positive behaviours than negative. Students can log in and see their own records and I do like the fact that they have a chance to reflect and add a comment themselves. Part of their homework this week is to think about the points system we will use, in fact whilst writing this post two students left comments on our homework blog with suggestions for points which I have duly added! I then used my phone to award the two of them a participation point! A computer can of course be used to award points but it is also possible to use a tablet or phone, apps are available for android and iPhone.

I regard this as a good way to document their learning behaviours, it is absolutely not a traditional ‘reward’ system which I think can be a minefield! I want something accessible to all and is clear to us all that it is about each student being the best they can be. Writing that statement has made me realise we need points for being gritty (and the value of writing things down)!

There are many leaflets and handouts with clear instructions and ClassDojo’s YouTube channel has a collection of tutorials showing you how to use ClassDojo.

Sixth Form – WolframAlpha and Desmos

Select the image for the Desmos graph.

As I always do I have been showing all my classes how helpful WolframAlpha is for checking working, so I was very pleased that when two of my Sixth Form students (UK age 16-18) came independently to see me about some homework they had both been using WolframAlpha to check answers. One student also asked about modulus inequalities and I showed her how simple it is to use the Desmos graphing calculator to illustrate the problem.

New Discoveries

The MathsTools site has a section for apps as well as many other categories. Personally I will be exploring all the android apps. iPad and iPhone categories are available also.
Install GeoGebra on your android or apple tablet..

Maths News
The National curriculum in England, Mathematics programmes of study for key stages 1, 2 and 3 were published on September 11th. (Link added to the News page).

Miscellaneous

I mentioned Jane Hart’s Top 100 Tools for Learning last week, this is the last chance to vote for the 2013 list as Jane will publish the latest list on September 30th. Jane Hart’s definition of a learning tool: “A learning tool is a tool for your own personal or professional learning or one you use for teaching, training or e-learning.” Voting closes at midnight GMT on Friday 27 September 2013.

….and finally

For your amusement (thank you to my daughter Sophie for the link), can you figure out these movie titles? from Spiked Math.

This week in class…

In my first lesson with each class I have been talking to my students about being gritty and green! The green refers to our engagement with learning assessments where we traffic light students green / amber / red for their engagement with their learning. They certainly all listened and understood the message and clearly want to do well.
I have used the name cards I described here; I printed the address of my homework blog on one side for them to see and note and they wrote their name on the other. I find these really helpful, seeing the name beside the student means you can use their name when you talk to them and I already know many names. I collect them in at the end of the class, providing another opportunity to use their name thanking them for returning the card. (The ‘cards’ are actually folded A4 paper.)
I read Tom Sherrington’s post “Empowing students to own their learning solves maths problems“; a great idea to start with a diagram with no labels at all as a way into a problem. I tried this with Year 10 (very able students) in their first lesson, presenting them with only Tom’s diagram and was very pleased indeed with the outcome. I didn’t even give them the question – just the diagram (a small copy each) and we started by deciding what the question might be. We quickly got onto areas as a possibility so then answered Tom’s original question ‘what fraction of the shape is shaded?’. The class happily discussed how to solve the problem and a student asked ‘can we write on the diagram?’ which of course was perfect – absolutely they could write on it. We solved the problem, revising some basics and had the discussion about what to do when you don’t know what to do! I will certainly use diagrams with no labels again.

New Discoveries

Nrich now have modules for STEP preparation which look excellent. Note also their related resources such as preparing for university.
The wonderful Desmos graphing calculator keeps getting better and better and now has animations.
I tried an Android app I rather like, Numbers which is similar to Countdown. Use the given numbers to achieve the target. There are over 200 levels. I’m not sure the levels have a lot to do with increasing difficulty – look at level 61 here for example – this is much easier than some of the earlier problems. When I first started playing I didn’t realise you could click on intermediate results as you see in the illustration here and actually managed several levels without doing do! Dave Gale has written a post on the app here. I think I’ll try some of the problems this week with my Year 7 class when we discuss order of operations because we could write out the solution on several lines as in the app but then discuss how we could write the solution with brackets. I really want this on my interactive whiteboard (as well as my tablet and my phone!)
Maths News

In the news recently we have information on the UK GCSE and A Level reforms.

Miscellaneous

I have written before on Jane Hart’s Top 100 Tools for Learning, the 2013 list is now published.

Blog Updates

The News and Reading pages have both been updated.
The Starters blog has several new additions see for example MEI GCSE Starters and on the collections page we have a great collection of starters on Tick Tock Maths from Richard Tock. If you like the idea of giving students a diagram and asking them to write a question as described above then this post has some resources you could try.
If you ever ask students to find images, do they know how to make sure they are copyright free? See Copyright Free Images
For general information on learning which apples to all subjects see ‘Learning‘.