Explain this
Getting the Buggers to Add Up
How the publisher describes it:
“Following the outrageously successful formula of Getting the Buggers to Behave, this extremely practical guide equips teachers with a huge number of strategies for improving pupils' numeracy skills in the classroom. Mike Ollerton shows how active learning, equipment based and surprise perspectives can bring mathematics alive. Brimming with useful tips and inspirational advice on every aspect of mathematics teaching, this book will prove essential reading for mathematics teachers everywhere.”
Review by Adam Creen
In brief:
The book has a very chatty style, and Mike Ollerton is honest about his failures as well as successes - it prompts you to think reflectively about your own lessons. He has also written other books covering these themes, including <a href="/shop/products/act017.html">‘Learning and teaching Mathematics without a textbook’</a> for the ATM.
“His main theme is creativity and problem solving in the classroom”
Continuum have published a whole set of ‘Getting the Buggers to...’ books, mainly about classroom management (written by Sue Cowley), but now they have branched out into curriculum areas, giving us titles like ‘. Draw’ for Art, ‘. Write’ for English, and ‘...Add Up’ for all of us.
Mike Ollerton deals with the title in his introduction and reassures us he’s not meaning to label groups of or even all pupils, and that he knows there’s more to Maths than adding up. The point of the book is that there’s a whole lot more, as his main theme is creativity and problem solving in the classroom. So it’s not really about Numeracy at all. It’s inspirational and personal and full of ideas that you are left itching to try out.
He starts by going right back to 1985 with publications such as ‘Maths from 5 to 16’, and talks about how the ideas around that time shaped his teaching. He had ideals of mixed-ability groups doing problem-solving activities without textbooks. But he knew that we don’t teach in an ideal world, and he doesn’t aim to be prescriptive. He then covers why Maths is worth learning, and some ways in which you can surprise students with unexpected results that get them to think.
As we read through, lots of different and current issues are covered, including use of practical equipment, visualisation, cross-curricular Maths, using real-life contexts, and ICT. Each chapter ends up as some strategies or tasks that can be used or adapted in lessons. But it isn’t just a list of activities, as the philosophy behind the approaches is explained as well. The book has a very chatty style, and Mike Ollerton is honest about his failures as well as successes - it prompts you to think reflectively about your own lessons. He has also written other books covering these themes, including ‘Learning and teaching Mathematics without a textbook’"> for the ATM.
This isn’t a book for teachers who want basic advice on planning lessons or using schemes of work, and maybe the title is misleading. Many of ideas will be familiar to those who have been teaching as long as Mike Ollerton has. But it is a good book to read during a holiday, and maybe think, ‘That would be really good to try...’
Adam Creen • Head of Maths, Salesian School, Chertsey
Paperback: 216 pages
Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.; illustrated edition edition (18 Mar 2004)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0826468799
ISBN-13: 978-0826468796
Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 13.6 x 1.6 cm
