3. Prof. Skills & Abilities – Page 3 – Tales of a Newly Qualified Teacher

March 17, 2016

What is Cromdale?

During the 21^st to the 24^th of March, I am going to be going to Cromdale as part of my placement with Adventure Aberdeen. Therefore I thought I should do a post all about the wonder of Cromdale, one before and one after going there.

“Cromdale Outdoor Centre is Adventure Aberdeen’s residential base on Speyside. Converted from a Victorian village school and schoolhouse it is located in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park. It is ideally located within easy reach of some of the most spectacular water and land based activity sites in Scotland. The base is perfect for all groups involved in outdoor activities or courses.

Cromdale is situated right in the heart of the Cairngorms, here you can experience the natural beauty of Speyside. From the outstanding waters and unusual wildlife to the towering mountains, this area is known for its breath-taking scenery. Step outside and be greeted by Scotland at its very best. Cromdale Centre is ideally based for a variety of outdoor activities and visits. Venues easily accessible from the centre include:

The River Spey (300m from the centre) – access and egress for kayaks, canoes and white water rafts
The Speyside Way (200m from the centre) – gentle and scenic walking and biking on waymarked trails.
The Cromdale Hills (500m from centre) – excellent and extensive hill walking country with superb views of the Cairngorms and Speyside.
Huntly’s Cave (7 miles) – superb rock climbing and abseiling venue.
Bridge of Brown Gorge (10 miles) – one of Scotland’s premier gorge walking locations.
The Lecht (21 miles) and Cairngorm Mountain (27 miles) – for fantastic ski-ing, downhill mountain biking and hill walking activities with ski-lift and funicular railway access.
A multitude of venues for glen or hill walks – Adventure Aberdeen can provide guides and/or instruction.
Official Forestry Commission Mountain Biking centres at Moray Monster Trails (20 miles) or Laggan Wolftrax (45 miles).
Extensive off-road cycling within the Spey and Cairngorms areas – Adventure Aberdeen can provide guides and/or instruction.
Aviemore and Carrbridge areas have many visitor attractions. The Aviemore tourist office or website can provide more details” (Adventure Aberdeen, no date, no page).

My reading has shown the importance for residential outdoor education as well as the importance of a residential trip in the Curriculum for Excellence so I am looking forward to heading to Cromdale to experience this for myself as part of the tutor team.

Reference

Adventure Aberdeen (no date) Residential Packages Available at: http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/AdventureAberdeen/Outdooreducation/adventure_residential_packages.asp (Accessed on 17/03/16)

March 14, 2016March 14, 2016

Dyslexia: A Break Down

After an input from one of our lecturers, Will, where he state that if we aren’t aware of the different Additional Support Needs (ASN) then we were being ignorant. Two of my friends and I have decided to look into Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia. As normally if you have one of these ASN then there is a stronger chance you will have another, if not all three as these come as a family of ASN. Through this blog post I am going to briefly give some information on Dyslexia.

What is Dyslexia?

“The word ‘dyslexia’ comes from the Greek and means ‘difficulty with words’.” (British Dyslexia Associations, no date)

Dyslexia is a common addition support need – a person who has dyslexia struggles with reading, writing and spelling. It is a lifelong problem for those who have dyslexia but there is support out there for them.

1 in 10-20 people have Dyslexia – therefore in a common sized primary school class in Scotland, it is more than likely that teachers will have at least one child who struggles with dyslexia if not more.

Unlike many ASN, Dyslexia has no impact on intelligence.

Dyslexia mainly affects the person’s ability to processing and remembering information that see and hear which can impact upon the person’s learning and the acquisition of literacy skills.

The Signs of Dyslexia

The signs of dyslexia are for the majority, spotted when they are in primary school and begin to focus on reading and writing.

The NHS (no date) states that the signs of dyslexia may include:

“read and write very slowly
confuse the order of letters in words
put letters the wrong way round – such as writing “b” instead of “d”
have poor or inconsistent spelling
understand information when told verbally, but have difficulty with information that’s written down
find it hard to carry out a sequence of directions
struggle with planning and organisation”.

Dyslexia and The Eyes

The reason I had chosen to look into Dyslexia is that I have a form on dyslexia called Irlen’s Syndrome (which is commonly known as visual stress) which affects how you see text which is common with people with dyslexia. Below is an example of visual stress.

People with dyslexia often cannot focus when reading standard black writing on white paper. People with dyslexia tend to prefer to have the paper a different colour – the colour of the paper depends on the person. I prefer grey paper which is very uncommon whereas yellow can be very common. There are things called overlays which are coloured plastic sheets for people who have Dyslexia or Irlen’s syndrome to place over paper to filter the paper to the colour they need. Below I have included a yellow and grey overlay but there are multiple different colours which can be seen at the Dyslexia website (ADD hyperlink). For some even the overlays are not even and they have tinted glasses to the colour they need.

Dyslexia and the eyes, Irlen’s syndrome or visual stress can cause symptoms such as the following:

“Blurred letters or words which go out of focus.
Letters which move or present with back to front appearance or shimmering or shaking.
Headaches from reading.
Words or letters which break into two and appear as double.
Find it easier to read large, widely spaced print, than small and crowded.
Difficulty with tracking across the page.
Upset by glare on the page or oversensitive to bright lights.”

(British Dyslexia Association, no date).

This can affect the child’s reading ability, making reading very tiring and a chore for children who suffer from it. However, in my own experience after getting the appropriate support, through my grey overlay, I found my love of reading come back.

What can a teacher do to help?

The following advice I have taken from dyslexia.com (Hodge, 2000).

Make sure anything that needs to go home, for example messages about when they need to take their physical education kit in, when parents even is. their homework etc, is all written down in a diary and checked before they leave, The advice also suggests getting them to have a couple of friends phone numbers at the front of the diary in case they are confused by what they are to do they can phone and check.
Break down tasks and instructions into short chunks of information that is easy to remember.
When they are copying from the board, try writing every line in a different colour of every second word underlined. With the technology these days, if you are using power point or interactive smart boards if you have a child who needs a yellow overlay, make the slides have a yellow background – this does not make a difference for anyone else in the classroom but makes it easier for the person who needs the overlay.
Make sure the reading stays on the board long enough for the children to read (and if necessary copy it down) it thoroughly and not rush.

The website has lots of advice on different areas including: reading, writing, copying from the board, spelling, maths, homework among others.

More information

Irlen’s Syndrome http://www.irlen.org.uk/

Dyslexia Shop http://www.thedyslexiashop.co.uk/stationery-for-dyslexics/specialist-paper.html

Advice for in the classroom http://www.dyslexia.com/library/classroom.htm

References

British Dyslexia Association (No Date) Dyslexia and Specific Difficulties: Overview Available at: http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/dyslexic/dyslexia-and-specific-difficulties-overview Accessed on: 23/01/16

Hodge, P. (2000) A Dyslexia Child in the Classroom: A Guide for Teachers and Parents Available at: http://www.dyslexia.com/library/classroom.htm Accessed on: 27/01/16

National Health Service (No Date) Dyslexia Available at: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Dyslexia/Pages/Introduction.aspx Accessed on: 23/01/16

February 18, 2016

Timetables Break Through

I have recently been looking into pattern and how this helps with learning different multiplication tables (instead of just rote learning – although yes I do think children should be able to memorise their multiplication tables it is not as easy for some as to just memorise and chant them out straight away) that children struggle with and Hopkins, Gifford and Pepperell (1999). seem to have great ideas that I have never come across whilst teaching or being taught my timetables!

Hopkins et al. (1999, p.26-8) focus on the 3-8 timetables due to the fact the 1,2 and 10 timetable are relatively easy to learn. They suggest using a staircase pattern (for an example see below) for the 3-8 timetables:

For the three timetable – Hopkins et al. suggest using multilink cubes/cuisenaire rods, sides/corners of triangles or the segments of fingers.
For the four timetable – the legs on animals or tables, corners of squares.
For the five timetable – (although this is relatively easy table to learn as the pattern for the five timetables the last digit alternates between the 5 and 0) Hopkins et al. suggest using 5p coins or hands to build the staircase.
For the six timetable – use hexagons, egg boxes or 6 chairs around a table to build the staircase.
For the seven timetable – use heptagons to build the staircases
For the eight timetable – use spider/octopuses legs or octagons.

All of these are also great links to learning shape – learning the name of the shape to the amount of sides/corners it has.

Any of the above can be taken and put into this example:

However, the nine timetable is not easy. Well it is with the help of your hands. If you go along your fingers by the number of times you wish to multiple by nine put that finger down and you get the answer with the tens on the left hand side and the units on the right and side.

S&D

Reference:

Hopkins, C., Gifford, S. and Pepperell, S. (1999) Mathematics in the Primary School: A Sense of Progression London: David Fulton Publishers

January 27, 2016

Upstart Dundee Launch

Upstart is a campaign for a nationwide moment to push back the starting age for school in Scotland from 4 or 5 years old to 7 years old to allow time for play and for children to be a child for as long as possible.

Queue the mad panic from parents. But just wait… There are so many benefits it may be time to step out of your comfort zone and into a new adventure and here is why.

The lecture theatre was filled in Dundee – Brenda (the Convener of Upstart) expected around 30 people but with a keen audience of over 330 people turned out it was the biggest launch for Upstart yet.

So why would we want children to start school later?

I have already looked into this in an early blog post available here.

In Scotland, we are keen advocates of learning everything as quickly as we can and we have one of the lowest school starting ages in Scotland with only 12% of countries worldwide having their children start school at 4-5 years old where as 66% of countries have children start school at 6 years old and the remaining 22% of countries have their children start school at 7 years old. An OECD survey shows that the 22% of countries that have their children start school at 7 years old are the countries with the children who tend to do the best academically.

Those countries that start at the age of 7 years old have a play-based kindergarden for 3-7 years old but by the age of 11 years old there is no difference in reading ability and those who start school at 7 years old are in fact keener to learn to read than their peers who started school at 5 years old.

In Finland, they do the least number of hour of schooling in the developed world yet still get the best results. They start school aged 7. They play until the age of 7. They lead healthier lives physically and mentally, they live longer and they are still better academically.

If we are living longer lives as adults, which Brenda quoted could be until 120 years old for this generation, then why are we continuing to decrease the time that a child spends playing?

The idea that children should play until the age of 7 is not a new idea. Sue Palmer, the founder of the Upstart movement and a language and literacy specialist, informed us at the launch that the idea originated from the Greeks.

The benefits of play are extensive. Sue Palmer and Dr Suzanne Zeedyk stated that free play build and influences many areas of our lives: it builds resilience, problem solving skills, social and communication skills, self-regulation, a love of learning. Free play influences creativity, sensory development, emotional experiences, friendships, a child’s thinking ability, motoric development, and the quality of marriage in later life. But the problem? Free play, such as playing in a sandpit, does not look like learning and in Scotland we love to push education.

Prince George at two years old is off to “nursey school” – into school at two years old. But according to the press it is not for the Prince to have a chance to play to develop all of the skills above it is to get him “into lessons” (The Telegraph, The Daily Mail and The Metro). We are too quick these days to put extra pressure onto children by adding the element of schoolification to early education.

The experiences a child has clearly affects the kind of adult you are. The pressure put on children currently has a clear impact on their mental health as children and as adults. In Scotland, there is a real decline of play – due to the school starting age and the development of technology. 2 in 3 children aged between 5 and 16 years old have their own tablets and at least a quarter of children are sent to bed with their tablets. In Scotland, there is also a huge increase in mental health problems and there is a widening achievement gap. How does our First Minister plan to fix this? By putting yet MORE pressure on children and teachers by reintroducing standardise testing – they didn’t work with the old 5-14 curriculum so why are we going back to this idea? Why do we not move forward for a 21st century change? Into a new revolution. A new adventure. An adventure where play and childhood is at the forefront?

Convinced? Follow the national Upstart movement on Facebook here and on twitter @UpstartScot.

Still unsure? Have a look at some more evidence

January 21, 2016

The Right to Play – Are Scotland Doing Enough?

In 1989, the United Nations introduced the Convention on the Rights of the Child which was ratified by the United Kingdom in 1991.

In the Convention on the Rights of the Child article 31 states that “States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.” (Unicef, No Date Given, p.9). I am interested to investigate if Scotland are doing enough in the early stages of a child’s life to allow them to engage in play. I have recently been looking at Sweden’s education system for the early years and their outlook on childhood and play. I am going to compare the two systems to see if Scotland are doing enough to allow children to play.

The first crucial difference in the two educational systems is the school starting stage. In Scotland children start school between the ages of 4 and 5 where as in Sweden children do not start school until the age of 7. In Sweden, the children however do go to preschool from a very early age – this is heavily funded by the government to support parents who are working or in education themselves – it roughly costs around £7.50 per day including food per child. The children leave preschool with no knowledge or learning of reading and writing at the age of 7 however by the age of 10 there is no difference in the league tables for reading and writing in Sweden with any other country. Parents and the Government believe that children should have the chance to play and develop before they begin school which is why they go to preschool to develop their social skills.

On the other hand, in Scotland, from as early as possible children are sent to school to learn to read and write. The government suggest they do this to allow parents to go back to work/education as early as possible. However, this means that from an early age children are taking away from the right to play and are made to begin their learning through planned lessons where as in the early years in Sweden the children have no planned lessons giving them the freedom to play and explore, particularly in the outdoors – a huge part of the Swedish Education system is based upon their push for outdoor education and play. Comparing this to Sweden and the league table results suggests immediately we are not doing enough to encourage play in the early years of childhood which is a right of the child.

However, in the Early Learning and Childcare Entitlement produced by the Scottish Government (No Date Given, No Page) it states that the Scottish Government are continually trying to improve the standard of early learning as well as its flexibility and cost for all families. Since August 2014, children, aged between 3 and 4/5 years old (for the majority of children – there are cases where it is from the age of 2 years old), in Scotland are entitled to 600 hours of free early learning and childcare. This gives children the chance for meaningful play to encourage children socialising from a young age before going to school. However, in comparison to Sweden although they have to pay for their preschool, it is a small expense as it is heavily subsidised by their government, children can attend preschool to play for a much longer period from as early as a parent wants to the age of 7. This gives the child more opportunity and time for meaningful play before entering school than there is in Scotland.

There are opportunities for play in the Scottish Education System, enough to meet the right of the child in article 31. However, I personally feel that the Scottish Government could be doing more to encourage play particularly at a young age especially in comparison to the Swedish Education System.

References

Scottish Government (No Date Given) Early Learning and Childcare Available at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/People/Young-People/early-years/parenting-early-learning/childcare (Accessed on 20/01/16)

Unicef (No Date Given) The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Available at: http://www.unicef.org.uk/Documents/Publication-pdfs/UNCRC_PRESS200910web.pdf (Accessed on 20/01/16)

January 20, 2016

Adventure Aberdeen – Am I Ready?

With our learning from life placement coming round quickly – I thought I would reflect on my experiences I have so far that will help with my time at Adventure Aberdeen.

The main categories of experience I feel that will be of use in this placement are: my first year placement, my work, my experiences from secondary school and university lectures on outdoor education.

My main reason for choosing Adventure Aberdeen was based on my own keen interesting in sports from my upbringing and my work life. I have worked as casual staff for Aberdeenshire Council for over 3 years now as a Leisure Attendant (lifeguard), an Aquatics Instructor and a Coaching Assistance. I had a variety of sporting qualifications and experience teaching sports in different environments outside of a school. This has mainly become apart of my adult life due to my keen interest in sports as a child. I feel that this background of experiences in sports will help me when out on placement with Adventure Aberdeen.

I also have a job as a Sessional Playworker at The Yard Scotland: an indoor and outdoor adventure centre for children with additional support needs (ASN). This job gives me great experience working hands on with children who have ASN in a playful setting and gives me the opportunity to learn about different ASN that I may meet in a classroom. As well as this I feel that this will be useful experience when I go on placement at Adventure Aberdeen as when I visited Adventure Aberdeen before securing my placement I was told of the work they do with children with ASN which means thanks to my part time job at The Yard I will already have experiences of working with children with ASN outside of a classroom.

In my first year placement at university, there were so many things I gained from this placement it would be impossible to go through it all. However, the main things I felt I learnt from this placement was planning and delivery of lessons, organisation, keeping my folio of evidence and about different ASN needs in the classroom. These are all things that I feel will impact on placement at Adventure Aberdeen in different ways.

Throughout secondary school, I feel I gained multiple different experiences that will continue to assist my journey through placement at Adventure Aberdeen. I gained my Community Sports Leaders Award (CSLA) in my sixth year of academy which meant I was also selected for the Aberdeenshire Leaders programme in 2014. This means that I knowledge on a range of different sports, qualification and voluntary experiences through gaining my CSLA qualification and my place on the Aberdeenshire Leaders programme.

The last area of experiences I feel that will assist me through my placement is my lectures in Outdoor Education. Although one of the reasons I chose this placement was also down to the fact we do not have enough time at university to be lucky enough to have many lectures on Outdoor Education. On the other hand, I knew this was something I wanted to be able to include in my practice when I am a qualified teachers and knew this was the time I could use to gain some experience in this area. However, we do have some inputs on Outdoor Education such as the one I blogged about before on Literacy and History, which you can read here, which I will be able to use the information we have been given in these lectures and workshops for my placement. I know this is an area I will look to develop through this placement through the hands on experience Adventure Aberdeen can provide me with as well as through reading up on different ideas I can use.

So far, I feel I have many skills and an array of knowledge that I can use for my placement this year and there are areas that I am looking forward to developing through the experience at Adventure Aberdeen.

December 5, 2015December 6, 2015

Finale of Discovering Mathematics

My essay is submitted. The last workshop is over and it’s the end of the discovering mathematics module. To round off the module, I thought I would post an end of module blog post.

Was the module what I expected?

Discovering mathematics wasn’t exactly what I expected if I am being honest. I expected it to be a lot more directed at our future in the education profession (even with it being an elective module – I still thought this because it was an education elective) and I sort of thought it would be like our maths inputs from Teaching Across the Curriculum module in second semester of first year.

Did the module disappoint me?

Not at all – even without it being what I expected it to be. The best thing about the module had to be Richard’s excitement and enthusiasm. There isn’t many people who can take demand planning, turn it into a game and have everyone in the palm of their hands.

What did I gain from the module?

Before the module, I thought I knew a fair bit about mathematics. After the module, I realised I only knew the mathematics I was taught in school and mainly from secondary school which I perceived as pointless during and after standard grade maths – there was no relevance to my life which is exactly why I didn’t finish higher maths.

During the module, I realised just how relevant maths is to our day to day life (for everyone) and society. However, I still stand by the fact I think standard grade and higher mathematics is pointless… Who even uses standard deviation really?

The mathematics we discovered throughout this module was maths and music (who doesn’t listen to music?), the mathematics behind pineapples, the mathematics outside the classroom: it is the type of mathematics that is simply all around us. But it is also the mathematics we are never taught about at school. This module has given me a fresh outlook on why we need mathematics which leads nicely onto the next question I had to ask myself…

Where/when will I use this in the future?

The fresh outlook on mathematics that I have gained throughout this module has made me realise just how little relevance there is in learning mathematics out of a textbook for children. Examples in textbooks go on about little Jimmy buying 30 Watermelons (really?).

This module has given me multiple ideas of how to bring relevance into mathematics when I teach – even without the module being directed at teachers.

A particular lecture that stood out for me, for teaching in the future, was the maths and astronomy lecture by Dr Simon Reynolds. I think the majority, if not all, children learn about space when they are in primary school and I have never thought about the space in space. Yes, teachers tend to leave out learning about the space in space – the irony. Dr Simon Reynolds spoke to us about the size of the planets, pictures normally used to convey the planet sizes compared to one another but never about the distance between each planet. This will definitely affect my teaching when I teach a class about space.

Furthermore, in the future (a little bit closer than getting into my own classroom) I plan to take the information I learnt from Will Berry’s input on outdoor education and maths for my second year Learning from Life placement at Adventure Aberdeen and hopefully use this in relation to my placement as Adventure Aberdeen is an outdoor learning centre.

Where is my maths anxiety now?

We began the module with Tara Harper asking us to fill in an survey on how anxious we were about teaching mathematics and how we felt about mathematics (which I blogged about earlier), so I thought after going through the module it would be quite nice to reflect on this.

At the beginning my maths anxiety wasn’t overly high compared to a few of my friends anyway. I would say if I am being honest, it hasn’t really changed. I am still anxious to get graded on this module. I would however say that I do feel a bit more prepared for teaching maths in school now as I have many more ideas that I can use in the classroom (and I know my friends also have multiple ideas as well that they will hopefully share) and I can now approach maths in a classroom with ideas that will be a lot more relevant to a child’s life.

However, my friend who stated she had “awful maths anxiety” before this module now “definitely feels more confident with understanding more difficult maths such as (the) Golden Ratio and (the) Fibonacci (sequence)” and that this can all be put down to Richard. (Alexander, 2015)

Finally, do I recommend it for next year’s second years?

If this hasn’t already convinced you – whether you love or hate maths, whether you are great or just feel you can’t do maths – this module is for everyone.

Yes it isn’t directed at teaching but you are bound to take lots away from it whether you think you know a lot about maths or you know nothing.

There is no “difficult” maths. There isn’t really any sums involved. You are looking in depth at the ideas and principles behind maths (and no it is not as boring as that sounds) as well as how maths comes into society (it really isn’t just the traditional STEM subjects like I first thought – who knew there was maths in a pineapple?…).

Richard’s enthusiasm and excitement will see that it is another great module next year again I am sure.

December 3, 2015

History and Literacy Outdoors!

Outdoor Education – two words that make any lecture automatically more interesting to me.

For Will’s input when he said we were actually going outdoors today I was as excited as any primary school child! As soon as we were allowed outside, off we went skipping away like little primary two’s.

We literally went off skipping in excitement…

As we only had twenty minutes before we had to be back into the input, we couldn’t go particularly far or find particularly much. However, what I did find that we could discuss was road safety, road signs and markings such as yellow lines – discussing with the children what they thought they meant. I also thought of reading things like bus time tables as this is a skill that is probably going to be relevant to their lives and is also something no one ever taught me to do.

However, after the input I went off for a wonder by myself down to the riverside. I already knew about the poem stanza down at the riverside and this was originally my first thought when Will told us to find something to do with literacy in the outdoors.

I was thinking of this as an upper years outdoor education lesson for history and literacy which could meet all four of these curriculum areas (Scottish Government, 2009):

Literacy (Reading): I can make notes, organise them under suitable headings and use them to understand information, develop my thinking, explore problems and create new texts, using my own words as appropriate. LIT 2-15a (p.31)

Literacy (Writing): By considering the type of text I am creating, I can select ideas and relevant information, organise these in an appropriate way for my purpose and use suitable vocabulary for my audience. LIT 2-26a (p.36)

Health and Wellbeing: I am experiencing enjoyment and achievement on a daily basis by taking part in different kinds of energetic physical activities of my choosing, including sport and opportunities for outdoor learning, available at my place of learning and in the wider community. HWB 2-25a (p.86)

Social Studies (History): I can investigate a Scottish historical theme to discover how past events or the actions of individuals or groups have shaped Scottish society. SOC 2-03a (p.283)

My lesson idea was to take the children down to the riverside with a notebook, first allow them to take some time to write down some words to describe what they seen, smelt, felt etc. I would give them some time to have a read of the tourist signs to see what information they would take about the Tay Bridge. I would allow some time for the children to discuss why they think we need the Tay Bridge.

Some pictures of the information signs for the Tay Bridge

My final part of the lesson would be for them to read the poem “The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay” by William McGonagall (no date) which reads (a small extract from the section of the poem at the riverside):

“Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!

I hope that God will protect all passengers

By night and by day

And that no accident will befall them while crossing

The Bridge of the Silvery Tay

For that would be most awful to be seen

Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green”

I would allow them to take notes from the poem stanza and give them time to discuss the poem. After going back to the classroom, I would have a copy of the poem for the children to read the full version if they wish.

Some pictures of the poem engraved at the River Tay.

When we got back to the class I would take some time for a whole class discussion on what they are learnt from the trip: from what they could initially see, smell, feel; to the history of the Tay Bridge; to McGonagall’s poem.

Whilst we were out, I would take pictures of the experiences, videos of the children and what they are thinking. Then when I would get them to reflect on what they have learnt in any way they wish the write it for example in a poem, diary entry, a creative story.

If I was carrying this on for a topic of the history of Dundee, when we were on our outdoor trip, I would perhaps ask the children to take a carrier bag with them and collect things to make a picture of the Tay Bridge for cross-curricular links with art.

As the Magdalen Green is continual mentioned throughout the poem – I would take the children out to the Magdalen Green for them to explore this as it is also a crucial part of Dundonian history. Allow them to go round collecting facts, items etc. for another outdoor lesson on the history of Dundee.

When we were finished the topic on the Tay Road Bridge: I would take the children down with chalk, allow them to add to the information (that they are learnt over the topic) provided at the Riverside on the ground. Documenting this with photographs and videos for the children assessment. I would also allow them to do this down at pavement at Magdalen Green with the facts and information they have learnt about Magdalen and its link to the history of Dundee. They could use the photographs in a portfolio for their assessment.

I feel this overall would be a lot more engage and active learning for the children instead of sitting at a desk with textbooks learning about the history of Dundee. These activities also have a lot more cross-curricular links than sitting reading facts out of a textbook about history.

References:

McGonagall, W. (No Date) McGonagall Online: The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay Available at: http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/gems/the-railway-bridge-of-the-silvery-tay (Accessed: 02/12/15)

Scottish Government (2009) Curriculum for Excellence Edinburgh: Scottish Government Available at: http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/Images/all_experiences_outcomes_tcm4-539562.pdf (Accessed: 02/12/15)

November 28, 2015December 6, 2015

Maths in the Outdoor!

I have chosen to blog about maths in the outdoors not only for the relevance to the module, Discovering Mathematics, but also for the relevance for my second year placement where I will be doing Outdoor Education.

Before coming to university, I would never have considered myself an outdoorsy person. I did not grow up in the type of family that went camping or went hill walking at the weekend. However, I have realised my keen interest in learning from the outdoors. I thoroughly enjoyed Brenda’s input on the Swedish curriculum and how they focus mainly on learning and playing outdoors. I am always particularly excitable when there is anything to do with health and wellbeing or outdoor education on our timetable – my friends sometimes think I am mad wanting to be outside in the freezing cold weather that we are having right now but personally I could not wait for Will’s outdoor education lecture!

I have realised I have learnt best when I am actively involved in a task and not just remember facts to reproduce my knowledge in an exam and this is something I have taken away from this lecture before I even think about writing what we actual participated in for the lecture. I believe I am not alone in this feeling and that children need to be actively involved in their learning to even remember a lesson let alone what was taught. Outdoor education has the potential to inspire and involve children in an active learning task.

Anyway I have already gone off on a tangent. The Maths and Outdoor Education input.

From what I have already learnt from this module – maths is literally hidden all around us, including outside. Now, you are probably thinking yes I know that if you cut a tree in half and you can tell how old it is from the rings on the stub. However, there is so much more mathematical possibilities outside. I would never had thought the way a wave spirals as it comes into shore would involve mathematics. Yet, as I have already explained this concept in a previous post, “Creative Maths”, the spiral of a wave meets the golden ratio which links with Fibonacci’s sequence. Maths when you are stood outside it literally all around you – there has been mathematics concepts used for designing and creating any building you can see.

In this particular lecture, we looked at navigation in the outdoors. Something through doing my Duke of Edinburgh I thought I knew relatively a lot about – except I didn’t. I knew the basics and that was all. For the reason that learning navigation is something we rarely do these days – we have GPRS on our phones, Sat Nav’s in our cars. Is there really a need for it any more with the technology we have? Simple answer yes. Although there is a great level of convenience with having a technology item tell us straight away where we are going and how long it will take to get there. There is the slight issue that all of the technology we have relies on the device having power. Our phones rely on having internet connect. What happens if we don’t have this? What I realised in this lecture is there are very limited people that have looked at a map recently or even know how to read a map.

I had never thought that I would have considered map reading to be fun. Once we had gone over the basics and everyone understood how to read a map. Will made it into a game – who could get to the next place the fastest. He would be given a set of the 6 point grid references (point A) for the starting position and a second set of 6 point grid references (point B) for where we were going – we had to find out the degree we were “walking” in on the map from point. We had to find who could find the degree the quickest – now we are a group of university students who got very into this and very competitive, very quickly. We all wanted to win.

No one was particular paying much attention to the fact we were having such fun reading a map. It could have kept us entertained for ages. Now with a group of primary fives – potentially it may need to be simplified a bit but I cannot see any reason why they wouldn’t act the same way. It gives them a chance to learn to read maps and actually enjoy it.

I feel this is something I could easily use in my future practice. I could easily take a group of children who have learnt to read maps and allow them to use estimation (another fundamental mathematical principle) to work out how long it would take us to walk from point A to point B using this chart below and compare it to reality of how long it did take us to walk and if we managed to do it in the correct direction the compass told us when we looked at it on the map.

I feel this is a beneficial and relatively easy way to get children engaged, outdoor, actively learning about map reading skills and take it away from constantly looking at a screen for directions and relying on a piece of technology to get us where we need to be.

I am thoroughly looking forward to getting outdoors in my future practice but in the near future for my learning from life placement – I hope to have the opportunity to either put these skills I have learnt into practice or learn even more about it and how it can influence my future practice.

November 5, 2015December 6, 2015

Why do we use a base 10 number system?

Easy peasy question many people might think. We have ten fingers so it can be a tool to help us count. However, how many teachers told you as a child to not use your fingers to count? I remember hiding my fingers under the table from around primary five upwards to count.

What about topics that we use in maths that don’t use a base ten system? Time. Time uses a base 60 for minutes and seconds. Time uses a base twelve system for the hours. Why don’t we count in any of these base systems? This is why time can be very difficult for a child to learn. When counting they have only ever used a base ten system and then when we introduce time anything familiar goes out the window. They are now introduced to counting in 60’s for each minute, for each hour. Another student on this elective discussed whether or not we should still be teaching time because of this (Dunne, 2015) – her opinion gives for an interesting read.

So apart from having our fingers as a tool I thought I would have a look into other base systems and the advantages of using a base ten system in this post.

As already discussed briefly in a previous post (“Our Number System”) there have been numerous different number systems which count in different base systems. The Sumerians “developed the earliest known number system” which had a base 60 system. The base 60 numeral system came from two tribes merging together as one used a base 12 numeral system and the other used a base 5 system and the lowest common multiple of both systems would be 60. Their symbols for their number system are below:

A base 60 system would perhaps make teaching time a lot simpler than a base 10 system. It would make sense for the minutes and the seconds but would also be very confusing still for the hours. On the other hand, this system has a lot of symbols which could be quite challenging for children to learn.

However, a base ten system does have a number of benefits. The base 10 system allows for simple explanations of hundred tens and units etc. Using a base two system such as the Arara tribe in the Amazon would get very repetitive and confusing rather quickly but on the other hand using a base 60 system it would take a long time until you exchange it for another to start again. A base 10 system has the benefit that it is big enough to not be repetitive but small enough that you are not continuously counting before exchanging.

This has given me a profound understanding of why our base system has come about. The benefits of the base ten system and why this is simple, as well as complicated when it comes to things like time or angles, for children to learn to count. Although there are many different types of number systems that are not just out normal base ten system or the roman numeral system that we teach children which I could use to broaden children’s knowledge, in my future career, on the different types of number systems such as showing them the yan, tan, tethera… video below as a different type of number system (a base 20 system) used for counting sheep more commonly used in the early 20^th century but still used by farmers now.

References:

Dunne, J. (2015) Is it time to scrap time? Available at: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/glowblogs/jennysjourney/2015/10/25/is-it-time-to-scrap-time/ (Accessed: 4/11/15)

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