Mathematics Teaching 158 - March 1997
Mathematics Teaching is the journal of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics. It is a professional journal sent to all members of the Association. It is not a refereed journal. Submissions are reviewed by the editorial team. Many articles have additional information or associated files placed on the journal website. To make your views known go to the ATM forum add your views, ideas and comments.
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MT158 Contents
Editorial - Barbara Ball
Should being able to communicate, to evaluate and to calculate be learned in separate compartments by studying separate subjects, or should the learning of them be integrated in some way?
Letters - Wim de Jong and David Ross
We recognise that the process of self-discovery is not only important and valuable but essential if we are to encourage autonomous mathematicians.
7-4=3 - Anne Watson
The pupils were clearly not bored, and I presume the teacher did not believe her methods to be muddling.
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Teachers can do research - Barbara Jaworski and Clare Lee
Teachers can do research and it can be valuable. If research is going to affect what goes on in our classrooms then it must be seen as valuable at the classroom level.
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Shielding children from mathematical danger - Nick Pratt
My intervention meant it was less likely that they would encounter something important in terms of learning, because I was 'shielding' them from potentially useful mathematical interactions.
Skeletal cube investigation - Pam Spellen
Children used the number pattern to help them spot a general rule for calculating volume, which they were able to record.
Mathematics and proof - Stephen Huggett and Michael Singer et al
Mathematicians in universities, people in mathematics education, and mathematics schoolteachers, all have objectives which are all part of one common aim, which is improving the teaching, learning, and doing of mathematics, at all levels, from primary level to research level. We do have to talk to each other and each of us has to see how things look from a different perspective.
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Maths is exciting - Jenny Taylor
Alongside the most kindly and understanding class teacher are often peers who are not always kind but are listening and aware of what is happening.
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Practice - Laurinda Brown, Alf Coles, Jan Winter and Kathryn Vaughan
I think practice has different levels of complexity and 'good value practice' for me is when there is one starter which I give from the front of the class and then the activity can go on for ages.
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Improving the quality of teaching and learning mathematics - Sue Jennings and Richard Dunne
Language should play an imponant role in learning and that structured conversations can assist all participants in developing better understandings and shared meanings.
Developing maths trails - Rod Cross
"It was really good 'cause we weren't just using a maths book. We went outside and actually done it!"
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Dusting down some of that old paper - Jan Winter
Take some time out of the busy round of pressures to talk and work together on mathematics. You could all be revived by the experience of enjoying some maths together!
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Pyramid numbers - Jill Russell
Liam, always ambitious, and working with Sam, extended the idea to using more than four bricks at the bottom. He told me they'd just finished their own birthdays and now they were working on mine: my fiftieth!
The Babylonian clay tablet - J Stuart Burns
We attacked the problem from an archaeological standpoint: here was a piece of what appeared to be mathematics, from the Babylonians of around 1750BC. What could it be about?
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Graphical calculators and problem-solving - Henryk Kakol
The graphic calculator puts the solvers in a different position. They are not merely executors of a specific request imposed by the problem but become discoverers of their own mathematics.
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Jason's journey - Sue Smith
I felt we needed a change, especially as a few of the children who were experiencing learning difficulties in mathematics were really struggling to remember their tables.
Thinking in three modes - Laurie Buxton
Symbols can be a great inhibitor to any form of learning, and if possible they should follow rather than precede other methods of offering proof or understanding.
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Reviews - ATM
Multicultural math classroom; Getting started: mathematical activities for key stage 3 and 4; Mathematics learning and assessment: sharing innovative practices; Mathematics in the Primary School: a Sense of Progression; Perspectives on mathematics.
Personal View - Sue Pope
Haw do people learn? This leads nicely to the question How do people learn mathematics?, then to the more precise question How does this individual learn mathematics? and most pertinently to the question What can I do as a teacher to ensure that each individual can learn?
For the Classroom: Interlocking polygon rings - Derek Ball
These activities involve creating tessellations with regular polygons. This can be done using polygon templates or stencils. ATM MATs can also be used. Another possibility is to photocopy some of the rings from this pull-out and give pupils copies to cut out and fit together.
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