Category Archives: 3.2 Classroom Organisation & Management

Mathematics a Tool of Everyday Life

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As  a Student Teacher holding a B at higher maths, I begin to get the butterflies in my stomach when i start to think hard on maths. Like many other students, I can find maths challenging, hard but also as a boring subject which i will have to make it as interesting and creative as i can for the pupils I teach.

My perception of Maths before from what I have seen in schools and from my personal experience reminds me of a child sitting with worksheets scribbling down numbers.

However, maths brings a lot more to it, and after the workshop i have started to understand that maths is all around us. it comes in the form of time, money, and putting shapes into order.   

Our first workshop on Mathematics today brought to me a set of new ideas and changed my perception, as I always have felt that I am not very knowledgeable in Maths and it would be the most frighting subject to teach. Whereas now  I feel a bit more relaxed and less anxious about going into to placement with these skills.

So why could so many of us be freighted to learn and teach maths. Frank 1990 mentioned a few ideas which are still around so many years later.

Examples, women can’t do maths.

My parents aren’t good at maths.

If you’re good at maths you can do problems quickly in your head.

You’re either good at maths OR language.

As a  teacher, i would try and make my classroom as vibrant, stimulating and interactive in a way where children would be taking part in maths without having to put pressure on themselves,

   

There are many stimulating ways which you can get children engages with maths:

Show me boards; challenges; going outdoors and playing games whilst recording numbers, counting and much more.

Watch this inspiration video to find out about lots more interactive maths.

This brings a wealth of ideas which really surprised me as a teacher. I hope that we begin to understand maths as a whole and how it can really impact on the life’s of the children we teach.

How animation can trigger your imagination….

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This Monday was our first day back at university, were i was feeling both excited and nervous to start our new module, Teaching Across the Curriculum. So first day back, and we were supposed to start of with a technologies workshop which consisted of learning about different program’s which allow you to create an animation.

First of all we simply learn how to do a flip book animation. It wasn’t hard after all, we just needed to make sure that we draw the pictures starting from the back of the book and use the last half of the page. It makes it easier to draw animations if you have sticky notes and gives it a better effect.

We watched this video which shows the simplicity of the work, yet an admirable piece which is easily created and makes a story within itself.

The next step was a Pivot animation. This is widely used in schools and create to get children to learn different concepts of ICT together with their imagination.Using Pivot is a great

pivot imageidea for children as it allows them to tell a story without any words and connect to other people.

Lastly we used ZU3D which was an interesting software which would allow children to create a short movie using figures made out of plasticine. We worked as groups to create this short movie. It took us a long time to try to get things working. We added subtitles and text, however we struggles to add sound to it. This would have given it a much better effect and a great stimulus with it. Another idea would be to add a background which would give it a better visual effect.

Here is our short ZU3D clip.