Explain this
Big Ideas
How the publisher describes it:
“Big Ideas is a set of ideas, resources and questions to challenge and encourage your learners to understand some of the most important concepts in mathematics. The book and accompanying CD ROM are packed with sufficient content for an entire year and offer a perfect starting point for learners commencing their secondary mathematics journey. Trialled and tested in UK schools – Big Ideas is ready to change the way your learners understand and experience mathematics.”
Review by Ray Huntley
In brief:
Before long, I was lost in thought, considering the wealth of opportunities which the book opens up. I would heartily recommend it to all teachers who wish to inspire their students towards mathematical thinking and discovery.
“Helps children develop their understanding”
This ATM publication is designed for teachers of children around Year 7 (aged 11-12 years), providing a set of resources and ideas to help develop understanding of some key concepts in the KS3 curriculum. It is described as a holistic scheme, and sets out seven distinct modules, each on addressing a different aspect of mathematics designed to be covered in each of the six school half-terms, as well as the overarching Module 0 which looks at the place of mathematics as a subject, an area of study, an activity and its place in history, along with links to philosophy.
The following modules each take a theme, for instance, Module 1 is on ‘Circles and Area’, and then sets out some key questions and ideas to help children explore and understand the main elements of the theme. In the first module, questions about shapes are introduced which lead towards a consideration of mathematical properties, firstly for rectangles and then quadrilaterals more generally, then onto circles.
The questions posed at each stage encourage learners to think about concepts and apply their understanding in open-ended problems. For example, in considering areas of rectangles, what might be the dimensions of a rectangle if the area is 12cm2 and do they have to be integers? Links to other aspects of mathematics are used, such as asking for the length of a rectangle of area 10cm2 if one side is 25cm, which helps children develop their understanding of the fact that multiplication does not always make a number bigger.
Further extensions to each activity are included, and very helpful resources for each module are found on the accompanying CD, masters of which are included at the back of the book.
I enjoyed reading through the modules, stopping to think about how I would use each with a class of young mathematics learners. Before long, I was lost in thought, considering the wealth of opportunities which the book opens up. I would heartily recommend it to all teachers who wish to inspire their students towards mathematical thinking and discovery.
