I left my year 1o class feeling really positive about how it went and so I want to record a few ideas to remember later. It’s a very small group (eight) of lower ability students and at times I find them hard to motivate. I’m not sure if it was easier today because I was away on training during their last lesson. They looked genuinely pleased to see me–perhaps their cover lesson didn’t go very well? It turns out they had a non-specialist supply teacher. They worked through the sheet I left them–an investigation called Crossed Lines from New York Cop. But they found it hard as expected, and so I wanted to review it with them.
The first good part of the lesson was asking them to use the mini whiteboards (MWBs) to draw some of the patterns. They seem less afraid to make mistakes when using the MWBs and it also lets me see more quickly what they are thinking.
Another good thing was the way I felt quite upbeat (from coffee?!) and smiley. I kept encouraging them throughout the lesson to try new ideas. We recorded our ideas as a group on the board. One student seemed to me, in my caffeine-assisted state, to be more communicative than usual. And I was glad I mentioned to her (after class) how pleased I was with her contributions.
When I asked them to talk to their partner I heard more ideas being shared than usual. I tried hard to stay out of the conversations. One boy turned to me to share his idea with me, and I replied, “I am not your partner… Talk to your partner, please.”
I managed to explain the transition to algebra better than usual. We do these little investigations every fortnight; it’s the same sheet for all nine classes of year 10 students. (This means all the other students, in the higher ability classes, are also doing the same work. We try to stay realistic about doing as much as we can–which is usually about half the sheet.) Each time the investigation leads the students to find a rule for the patterns they see, whether number patterns or shape patterns. My students know this question is coming, so we are starting to anticipate it: “Write your rule in algebra.” Now that we are on the fourth one, they are more willing to look for and express the rule. They are not as scared by the n appearing! What went well today was they agreed that the algebra was easier and more elegant to write than the word formula. Success for Mrs A!
I have realised that I am the one responsible for making sure the correction notation is used. I am happy if they can describe the algebra they want to write and then I make sure it is correct. In time I think they will be responsible for the algebraic notation on their own, but while their algebra skills are still a bit weak I want them to see correct algebra from me.
What went well for you today?