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Mathematics Teaching 164 - September 1998
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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MT164 Contents
Editorial - ATM
One thing which distinguishes highly effective teachers is their beliefs about the nature of mathematics, huw pupils learn and how best they can be taught, and that these beliefs are more important than what knowledge teachers have about mathematics.
Letters - Mike Ollerton; Alison Dunn; Jill Russell; John Burrows; Jon MacKernan
I now believe that anyone who has learned to speak has the ability to think mathematically. It is my job as a teacher to make that thinking accessible and enjoyable for the learners.
Moving on - David Rooke
It is the nature and quality of the intervention, the questioning and the comments that makes the difference and this can be worked on in any teaching/learning situation.
Parallel paths: shared journeys - Janet Ainley
Teaching is an intervention in the learning process. This learning process is inaccessible to direct observation by an outside person, such as a teacher, in the same sort of way as one's digestive processes are inaccessible to direct observation by a medical practitioner.
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Is it where it crosses the axis? - Olwen McNamara
Ann's conceptualisation of the crossing point as the 'origin' rather than the point y=O on the y-axis was deeply implicated in her subsequent failure to see the generalisability of her conjecture.
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A dialogue on the teaching of complex numbers and beyond - Chun-Ip Fung et al
Thomas closed up the pages of the mathematics textbook which started the whole dialogue, took a last sip of his cup of tea, and left the room.The sun was setting and painting everything in a pink hue.
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The great soroban project - Pat Cannell
In Japan children are taught computational skills using a soroban. The soroban is then taken away. It is thought that, even without the soroban in front of them, children can visualise the beads and perform calculations mentally.
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Another Turn - Margaret Poston
I stopped pretending I knew how to proceed when I didn't because that seems to lead to students feeling bad when they are stuck.
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Numbers up to 20 - Betty Ball
The pupils in the class were doing TU sums only, to keep it simple, so Luke's work with thousands is very impressive - what is more he is very proud of doing such hard sums and, motivated, is succeeding.
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Reviews - ATM
Mathematics Education and Language: interpreting hermeneutics and post-structuralism; The complete A -Z mathematics handbook; The Joy of π; Learning to teach mathematics; Mental methods in mathematics: a first resort; Dissections: plain and fancy.
Personal View - Liz Bills
It seems, therefore, all the more important to take seriously with our pupils the slogan 'Thou shalt be forbidden not to waste time'.
Calendar maths - Christoph Kirfel
Making an eternal calendar. Glue the original disc to the cardboard. Glue the two smaller discs to another sheet of cardboard and cut them out.
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