Conception of the good

On Wednesday, I visited Great Yarmouth Charter Academy and I was truly blown away by how extraordinary the school has become in the space of 5 weeks. This blog post will summarise what I witnessed to be excellent practice:

Chanting Poetry: Invictus

Whilst pupils were entering the hall to go to assembly, I could hear lines from Invictus being chanted with such rhythm and passion. The drama teacher would recite a line in an animated fashion and he would project his voice to resonate to every corner of the room. Pupils would recite back the line or complete the sentence of the line. If it wasn’t good enough then the teacher would repeat the line and get the pupils to recite it again.

Peaceful Corridors

Pupils walked in silence, single-file, on the left hand side with their bag in their right hand. Pupils transitioned through the corridor smiling and greeting their teachers wishing them ‘Good Morning, Sir!’ ‘Good Morning, Miss’. There was no chaos. Pupils would arrive at their teacher’s door with a sense of urgency, purpose and desire to learn. I saw the transition between form time and period one and it was incredibly peaceful and pleasant. Teachers stood in the middle of the corridor reminding pupils of the corridor behaviour expected. One of the teachers remarked that this transition took one minute where in previous years pupils would be arriving 15-20 minutes late to class.

Uniform

There has clearly been a huge push on uniform because pupils looked incredibly professional. Pupils’ shirts are tucked in, skirts at the knee, ties are immaculate and also hiding their shirt’s top button. I didn’t see any pupils wearing hoodies, coats or trainers. Pupils with scrappy uniform would be dealt with straight away.

Silent lessons

The school’s headteacher,  Barry Smith, took me around to see lots of different lessons. This was the highlight of my visit. Every classroom I walked into I saw pupils SLANTing. They were in silence listening to the teacher talking or watching the teacher writing on the board. I didn’t see any low level disruption in all of the classroom I walked into. I didn’t hear or see pupils whispering to each other, passing notes or speaking rudely or being disrespectful to their teacher. More importantly, I didn’t see a difference between how the kids were SLANTing before Barry entered the room compared to after he had entered. Why? This is because they were SLANTing throughout the lesson.

I went to two English lessons, and in one lesson pupils were in silence writing an essay about different overarching themes of the play, Romeo and Juliet. In the second lesson, I saw a pupil detail the context behind the poem, London, using a wide range of sophisticated language. I was almost brought to tears hearing an eleven-year old pupil share accurate insights into the poem in such a confident and articulate manner. His teacher was so pleased and she showered him with praise.

I watched the Head of Maths teach and she was the respected authority in the classroom. Her pupils were listening intently, they were SLANTing and speedily working away to complete their worksheet of questions. I saw a full 40 minutes of teaching and learning. No disruptions. Every second mattered and every second was utilised for learning.

Pursuit of Happiness

Pupils and teachers are genuinely happy at Charter Academy. Pupils are learning because teachers are able to teach with a clear and consistent behaviour policy being implemented in the school. I ate lunch with the pupils and lots of them shared their joy of being able to learn. More importantly, teachers are beaming with pride over how well-behaved and keen their pupils are to learn. One pupil was very honest and admitted to being the pupil who would truant and hide in the toilets. She admitted how behind she is academically due to the hours she spent outside of the classroom and is now doing extra revision at home and attending after school catch-up classes.

One of the Prefects I found standing in the crowd during break shared with me “I am really loving school. I am learning more than I ever thought possible. My teachers are great. Mr Smith has turned around my school. I am proud to be Charter.”

It is very early days but the school is a wonderful place to be for pupils and teachers and I’m very excited to see what Barry and his team achieve. Thank you to all who had me in theirclassroom!

At Trafalgar College, we have a centralised planning system put in place where all Maths teachers within the department are teaching from the same textbook. This textbook has been designed and agreed by myself and Ian Burchett, Executive Principal.

The rationale behind our decision to use a textbook as our main teaching resource was to ensure that all pupils in the year group, across all ability spectrums, are being taught the same content. The only difference between each class is the amount of time the teacher spends on teaching a particular concept.

This week I taught all my year 8 classes how to write a fraction as an integer (given the numerator is divisible by the denominator) and in the planning process I was thinking of the different problem types that fall under the concept of writing a fraction as an integer, here they are:

1. Simplifying a fraction where the numerator is divisible by the denominator

• Using the first 12 multiples of the first 12 times tables

• Large numerator that requires short division

 2. Finding the missing value which can either be:

• Numerator
• Denominator
• Integer

3. Filling in the missing blanks where the integer is equal to a string of fractions

4. Writing a fraction from a sentence and simplifying it to an integer

5. Deciding if the following equations are true or false

6. Deciding whether the equation will be a mixed number or integer, where the answer would be ‘integer’ or ‘mixed number’

7. Deciding which fraction is the odd one out given a list of fractions which simplify to an integer. Including fractions that do not simplify to an integer

8. Given a number line, state the equivalent fraction for each integer given the denominator of that fraction

What I found was that pupils were genuinely thinking about the concept that was being taught simply because they were trying a variety of different problem types. Essentially, they were doing the same thinking again and again but applying their knowledge in different instances. What I enjoyed was watching the kids ponder, stop and think whilst they were attempting each question on their mini-whiteboards. I saw the pupils correcting their mistakes before I even needed to highlight their mistakes whilst circulating the room. This is simply because I thought about the different ways of assessing a pupil’s ability to write a fraction as an integer.

This September, I started at Trafalgar College in Great Yarmouth and my biggest push for the first week was to ensure that all Year 7s would be able to recite their times tables.

I did this through rolling numbers. This is something I learnt from my visit at KSA, and saw the successful implementation of whilst being at Michaela Community School.

Rolling numbers is a call-and-response chanting of times table facts while pupils are counting off on their fingers. The chants are catchy and funny. There are specific hand motions to each times table chant which allows pupil to distinguish between different times tables – also resulting in many pupils desperately wanting to roll certain times table chants over others.

What worked well?

Kids at Trafalgar College have been successful in learning their times tables. The most effective aspect of it all is the counting off on their fingers. Kids can now associate that 21 is the third multiple of 7. This goes above and beyond having kids just listing out all twelve multiples. This enables pupils to answer certain calculations easily. How did I know this? I could see an improvement in the time it took for pupils to answer times table questions when I would test them before or after my lesson.

The lyrical and rhythmic aspect of the chants really motivates pupils to get involved because it makes reciting times tables fun and exciting. They find the opening line the teacher chants “Team! Team! Good as Gold! Let me see your fingers roll…the threes” motivating because the team element gets the reluctant kids to take part. When I say “roll” the kids start rolling their arms. From the front it looks really impressive to see 32 kids rolling their arms and smiling. Why? Simply because they are having a great time!

What were the struggles?

There are some pupils who will really want to take part more so than other pupils. I did have a small population of pupils who were reluctant, and thought that the whole process was cringeworthy and unnecessary. However, I didn’t let those pupils opt-out. The process of learning your times tables is imperative. My Headteacher put it nicely that learning the times tables is equivalent to learning the alphabet before you learn how to write. I would motivate these reluctant pupils in a positive manner by reminding them that we are a team and that they don’t want to be the person who lets everybody down. If you take part then you will enjoy it. If you take part then you will be able to list off your times tables effortlessly. What really helped was picking the most enthusiastic pupil to stand at the front with me and chant the teacher part. This made reluctant pupils see how successful other pupils have been who took part and motivated them to get involved too.

Why did I push rolling numbers in my first week?

It helps kids learn their times tables, successfully. Kids go through school learning their times tables in a very touch and go fashion and by repeatedly rolling numbers on a daily basis it pushed all pupils across the ability spectrum to commit these facts to their long term memory. The chants are catchy. The kids love the physical movements because they are loud and dramatic. Most importantly, it has made learning something potentially mundane (as children may think) incredibly enjoyable.

This blog post is a summary of a workshop delivered at Teach First’s Summer Institute with Nick Hutton.

Why are Behaviour routines effective?

Routines are behaviour tools to help teachers train pupils to behave or complete tasks in a certain way. Routines can serve many different purposes, they can:

Save time

There are many tasks that pupils take a significant amount of time to complete but those tasks are necessary, for example: passing out or collecting in exercise books, entering the classroom, exiting the classroom.  If they are completed in an inefficient manner then huge amounts of time accumulated is wasted. Routines can save precious seconds that total to hours.

Improves Behaviour

With explicit narration of how you want pupils to behave or what you want pupils to be doing at different stages of the lesson can improve behaviour. Narrate to pupils what you want them to be doing and what you don’t want them to be doing.

Creating a positive and purposeful

Part of implementing a routine is narrating to pupils the purpose behind the routine. When they see that there is an important purpose behind a routine pupils can understand why they are praised for complying and accept demerits when they aren’t. An understanding of routines create that purposeful environment and positive environment.

Here are a few routines that can be implemented in the classroom. I have included the instructions I would use.

Handing out books.

I have my classroom organised in rows and the pupils’ books are placed on the windowsill. Pupils were taught how to pass their books down in the most time effective manner. Here are the instructions that were given to do this:

“The person sat at the windowsill, raise your hand please. You are the most important person in handing out the books! The faster you pass the books the faster your peers will have their books to start the task. You want to make sure that your row is the fastest one… 

Your book will be on the top of the pile. You will take the pile and take your book. You will then pass the pile of books to the pupil next to you.

The next pupil, your book will be next in the pile. Take your book and pass it on.

So, the pupil at the window will have their book at the top of the pile. The pupil next to you will have their book next in the pile.

The pupil at the end of the row will have their book at the bottom of the pile.

Once you have your book, open it to your last page of working out and then SLANT to let me know that you are ready. We aren’t looking out of the window. We want to be ready!”

“When we pass our books back. The pupil at the end of the row. Your book will be at the bottom of the pile. When the next pupil gets the pile, you ALWAYS put your book on top. Not below. ALWAYS on top. Where do we put our book in the pile, Hamza?”

“We then put our pile of books on the windowsill. Once you have passed on your book you will slant.”

My instructions to the pupils are crystal clear. I have emphasised the role of the pupil who needs to take the pile of books. I have explained:

• where they can find their books
• what they have to do with the pile
• who they pass the pile on to
• what to do once they get their book
• what to do once their book is open to show me they are ready

I have also added a bit of flavour to my instructions in the sense that I have hyped up the kids to try and make sure they are the fastest row in passing out their books.

To get the pupils to get faster at handing out their books it would be a good idea to use a timer. I would then record the times for each day, and motivate the kids at the start of each lesson by saying

“Yesterday we passed the books in 42 seconds. Today we want to break that record. Let’s see if we can pass the books in 41 or 40 seconds? Ready…(scan the room to build suspense)…Go!”

Or you would set a countdown. This gives each pupil a sense of urgency that we don’t want to waste any time. It gets the pupils excited to beat a record.

The instructions for every lesson would be:

“When I say go, and not before. I want you to pass your green books and textbooks. Once you have your green book open it to the last page of working out and slant. That way I know that you are ready. You have 30 seconds. Let’s see whose row is the fastest. Ready…(watch class and pause to create suspense)…GO!

25-24-23…Lauren is ready…18…17…16…Hannah is slanting already…9…8…7…6….Emily’s row is ready…4…3…2…1…and slant! WOW, we broke our record – 29 seconds.”

A query that participants mentioned was “What if I haven’t got a windowsill? What if I haven’t got my tables in rows but in groups of 4 instead?” If I had my tables in rows and I had no windowsill or had my tables in groups of four then I would layout each rows’ pile of books just before the lesson.

This routine can be adjusted depending on the layout of your classroom. This routine simply saves time on a job that needs to be done. If I didn’t do this routine in a certain way then time would be wasted with books going up and down the row because a pupil could have another pupil’s book. The first pupil will waste time sifting through the pile of books to get their book. The time wasted accumulates to become hours. Pupils get frustrated filtering through books and I get annoyed watching this happening.

In summary:

• Provide pupils with explicit instructions on how to do the routine before they hand out the books
• If the pupils are doing the routine poorly then send the books back to the windowsill and get pupils to do the routine again. Keep doing the routine on a daily basis.
• When pupils are passing out books you need to be vigilant. Watch the pupils. Praise the ones who are ready early. Nudge the pupils who are taking their time.

Here is a clip –

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3tfMNA84AZoakZPNkJnMkdtYXc/view?usp=sharing

How to use Mini-whiteboards (MWB).

Using mini-whiteboards in the classroom can be stressful unless you have taught pupils how you want them to use them. Here are a few questions to think about beforehand:

Where do you want the pen to be when you are talking? In the pupil’s hand? On the table?

Where do you want the pen lid to be when pupils are using their pen?

When pupils are writing on the mini whiteboard do you want it to be on show to their peers or hidden away?

When pupils have completed their work on the MWB do you want the board up on s

how or hidden?

These are all questions that I didn’t even think of when I started using MWBs in my first year of teaching. Here are a few routines to put in place to help pupils know what to do:

Using their MWB pen

“When I say go and not before, you will take your MWB, take off the pen lid and place it at the end of the pen. This is because we don’t want our pen lids to go missing. I am going to give you 5 seconds to do that and show me in 5. 5-4-3-2-1-and show!”

This tells pupils what to do when they are about to start the mini whiteboard activity. This also doesn’t cause 30 MWB pen lids to go missing.

Closing their MWB pen

“When I say go and not before, you will close your MWB pen by taking the pen lid and placing it onto the pen. We want to click the pen and pen lid. I am going to give you 5 seconds to do that and I want to here the click in 5-4-3-2-1-and click!”

This prevents 30 pens drying out over time. Pupils now know what to do when they are finished with their pens. Also, they know how to check that their pen lid is actually on because they will hear a click.

Using their MWB

“When we use our MWB we don’t want to show our working out to anybody else because we don’t want to encourage any cheating. I trust that nobody would want to cheat because you are not really letting yourself learn. It is ok to not know the answer because it is my job to help you. So when you do your working out you have to hide your MWB. You want to keep it a secret. In three I want you to pretend to be writing on your MWB so I can see who is the best secret keeper?

This instruction is explicit in the sense that the pupils know how to do their working out. I have also narrated the purpose behind why I want pupils to be hiding their working out. I have also tried to discourage any cheating. There is also an opportunity for pupils to demonstrate doing their working in the way that I want and the competitive edge gets kids keen to do their best version of the routine. Offer some praise when the kids attempt the routine:

“I think Emily is the best secret keeper because she is using her arm to cover her MWB.”

What do you want pupils to do when they have completed their working out?

“When you have completed your working out you still want to hide your work. You will hold your MWB so the working out is facing your desk. That way nobody can see it. You will hover your MWB above your desk and track me. That way I can see that you are ready. We do not put our MWB up in the air because that means somebody else can see your work. I’ll give you a warning and if you do that again then you’ll have a demerit.”

I would then give pupils an attempt to try hovering their MWB.

“When I say go and not before, I will give you a question to complete on your MWB. Once you are finished hover your MWB. When I countdown from 3, you will put your MWB up in the air when I say ‘show’ and not before.”

If pupils aren’t putting up their MWB altogether then I would get pupils to do it again

“We aren’t showing our MWB as a team so do it again. 3-2-1-and show! Better, I have 100%”

These are just a couple of routines that can be applied in your classroom. The main take away is that your instructions have to be explicit for pupils to understand what they need to be doing at each and every stage of the routine. Explain to pupils what the routine should look like. Explain to pupils what the routine does NOT look like. Narrate the purpose. Add a bit of fun factor to the routine. Time the routine so pupils know that they have to act speedily. Pupils like to be told what they need to be doing. You are happy and so are the pupils.

I’m currently reading Outliers: The story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell and in one chapter there is a brief extract from Stanislas Dehaene’s book, The Number Sense. This chapter discusses why pupils in China, Japan and Singapore experience less confusion when learning elementary maths. Gladwell states that “a part of the disenchantment is due to the fact that math doesn’t seem to make sense; its linguistic structure is clumsy, its basic rules seem arbitrary and complicated.”

Here are a few key differences  between number-naming systems in Western and Asian languages:

1) Chinese numbers are brief

For example, 4 is ‘si’ and 7 is ‘qi’ which takes a quarter of a second to say compared to pronouncing the same numbers in English which takes a third of a second. Dehaene believes that “the memory gap between English and Chinese apparently is entirely due to this difference in lengths”. The Cantonese dialect of Chinese allows a memory span of about 10 digits.

Here is an experiment conducted in Dehaene’s book. Attempt to memorise this list of numbers: 4, 8, 5, 3, 9, 7, and 6. English speakers will have a 50% chance of remembering this list perfectly. Chinese speakers will list the numbers correctly every time. This is simply because “as humans we store digits in a memory loop that runs for about two seconds. We most easily memorise whatever we can say or read within the two-second span.” Chinese speakers are able to fit all those numbers into two seconds

2) The English number-naming system is highly irregular

The numbers above twenty such as twenty-two, thirty-five etc all follow the structure where the ‘decade’ comes first and then the unit number second. Compare this to the teens (18,16) which is the other way around where the unit number comes first fifteen, eighteen. China, Japan and Korea have a logical counting system, examples:

Eleven: ten-one

Twelve: ten-two

Thirty-five: three-tens-five

3) Asian children can perform basic functions (e.g. addition) far more easily because of the regularity of their number system

English speaking children need to convert the calculation of thirty-five plus twenty-three from words into numbers to then complete the addition. Compare this to adding three-tens-five and two-tens-three makes it easy to do the calculation since the order of the digits is within the sentence.

These are just a few facts that I was not aware of before reading Gladwell’s book. I highly recommend it for many more reasons as well as this one section about mathematics.

References:

Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success.

Dehaene, S. (1997). The Number Sense: How the Mind creates Mathematics

On Saturday, I spoke at #mathconf10 in Dagenham. The workshop was titled “Worksheet-making Extravaganza!” Indeed it was that.

When I started teaching I regularly went onto TES to download resources for my pupils. Usually, I would be annoyed that I couldn’t find a good enough worksheet because the worksheet I wanted would never be available. I then realised that I needed to start creating my own. However, in the process I realised that I found making problem types for different topics to be difficult because my subject knowledge wasn’t up to scratch. Now, I am very good at maths but that doesn’t mean that I am good at making a worksheet of questions for pupils to do and learn from. Then after spending a summer between my first and second year of teaching where I made different resources combined with my own experience of working at Michaela Community School I finally realised how to make my own worksheet. Here are the two things that make a good worksheet:

• High quality content
• High quality structure (deliberate practice)

What do I mean by high quality content? I am referring to the questions that are made to test a pupils’ understanding of the concept or procedure that has been taught. What is the starting point of gathering this content? If you are planning a lesson on how to simplify fractions then list out all the problem types from the easiest to the most difficult one. More problem types can be found by looking at different textbooks, asking colleagues and reading blogs etc. Let’s look at the problem types that can be included when planning a lesson on simplifying fractions, simplify a:

• proper fraction
• (an) improper fraction
• fraction that simplifies to a unit fraction
• fraction that simplifies to an integer
• mixed number
• fraction with large numbers (still divisible by a common factor)
• fraction that simplifies to 1

It is all well and good gathering a bunch of problem types but I have deliberately chosen the ones I have listed. This is because these problem types present four features that make the content of worksheet high quality:

• Arithmetic complexity
• Visual complexity
• Multiple steps
• Decoding

Arithmetic complexity basically means including more difficult numbers or large numbers in your questions. Can a pupil simplify one hundred and eleven-thirds? Also, it means including questions which have decimals and fractions, and creating questions where the answer is a decimal or fraction as well.

Visual complexity refers to creating questions which look a bit scary. Again, this can entail including large numbers to make a pupil think. For example, in terms of calculating the area of a square you can write a question where the length is a large two digit number or a decimal.Another example is to only label one length of a square, more than two lengths, four length etc. A question like this is testing whether a pupil can calculate the area of a square from squaring one length. Another very simple approach to make this type of question visually complex is to have the image at a certain orientation.Multiple steps is a feature in a question where you have increased the number of steps between the question and the answer. This can include having calculations in the numerator and denominator before a pupil is asked to simplify a fraction.

Decoding is a feature of a question where its set up is testing whether a pupil can rearrange or manipulate their new found information of the concept or procedure that has been taught. For example, providing pupils with questions which have incomplete answers. Or asking if the following equations are true or false?

An exercise on a worksheet can look something like this. Question (g) is testing a pupil’s misconception where dividing a number by itself is not 0 but 1. Similarly, question (k) is testing a system 1 mistake where a pupil is not fully thinking about the question, they simply see that the half of 18 is 9 therefore the answer is 9.

Can I apply these four features of high quality content when planning a series of lessons where I want pupils to learn how to add and subtract fractions with like denominators? Again, start with listing out the potential problem types. Adding or subtracting:

• Two proper fractions where the result is less than 1
• A proper and an improper fraction
• Two proper fractions where the result is greater than 1
• Two mixed numbers where the sum of the proper fractions is less than 1
• Two mixed numbers where the sum of the proper fractions is greater than 1
• Two mixed numbers where the sum of the proper fractions equals to 1

I can make these type of question arithmetically complex by having large numbers in the numerator and the denominator. I can include a question when I subtract two proper fractions and the result is negative.

Questions can be visually complex by including more than two terms, or a string of fractions including fractions, mixed numbers and different operations.

Similarly, making questions where pupils are asked to add or subtract a proper fraction with a mixed number can be visually complex too.

Questions where pupils have to rearrange their information of adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators can include true or false question. The first question below is conflating adding a numerator and multiplying the denominator.

Similarly, it is a really powerful form of testing pupils’ knowledge by including questions where the answer is incomplete. Can the pupils identify what the numerator is? Can pupils identify that 1 can be written as 10/10 and that 2 can be written as 20/10.

The following questions demonstrate the feature of questions having multiple steps between the question and the answer. Yes, you can easily write the answer, but if you wanted a pupil to write their answer as an improper fraction, you would want them to write the integer as a fraction.

Lastly, can we apply the following features to creating high quality content for the topic of powers and roots with fractions. Here are the problem types:

The mixed number examples are tailored so pupils are able to create an improper fraction where the numerator is still less than 15. Why? Simply because the kids at Michaela have committed the first 15 square numbers to memory as well as the first 10 cube numbers, but if I made the fraction more difficult where the numerator was greater than 21 then I would be making the question difficult for the wrong reasons. If the fraction was four and one-fifth then the numerator would be 21, and squaring 21 isn’t valuable. What is valuable is spotting the first step of writing the mixed number as a fraction, and then squaring the fraction. The mixed number examples demonstrate questions being visually complex as well as arithmetically complex.

The following question is demonstrating questions which have multiple steps to the answer, where calculations in the numerator and the denominator need to be simplified before squaring.  Again, calculations were designed where the numerator and denominator values would be less than 15.

The same form of thinking in applying the three features (arithmetic complexity, visual complexity and multiple steps) can be applied when fractions are being square rooted or cube rooted. However, ensuring that the numerator and denominator values are numbers that can be square or cube rooted.

What is new is including negative fractions when they are being rooted by an odd number. Furthermore, visual complexity as well as multiple steps to be performed to get the answer make these questions challenging and rigorous.

In summary, the four features which make a worksheet consist of high quality content is creating all problem types where they are arithmetically complex, visually complex, require decoding of current information from instruction and multiple steps to be performed to result in the answer.

I am still trying to wrap my head around creating a worksheet with high quality structure which will be my next blog post.

On Friday, I spent a couple of hours with a pupil in Y8 who has been selected to go through to the Junior Kangaroo challenge. Over half term, he was given past papers to attempt. We went through his answers and we discussed the questions he found difficult to do. In the process of going through some questions I realised how important knowing specific factual and procedural mathematical knowledge is crucial to a pupil’s success in the UK Maths challenge.

I am a huge fan of the UK Maths challenge. Why? Simply because each question is created to test ‘powerful’ knowledge. Daisy Christodoulou and Michael Young refer to ‘powerful’ knowledge as certain forms of knowledge which allows humanity (or in this context specifically pupils) to advance in some way to communicate more accurately. This blog will include questions which explore the ‘powerful’ knowledge that the Maths challenge tests, and how teaching such knowledge allows pupils to be successfully in the  challenge.

Here is a list of the topics that I am referring to as ‘powerful knowledge’ that allows pupils to become incredibly flexible in applying their knowledge to such questions:

• Divisibility Tests
• Prime factor
• Identifying Square numbers
• Angle facts (vertically opposite, interior angles of regular polygons)
• Common Fraction/Decimal/Percentage facts 3/8 à375 à 37.5%
• Double the radius for the diameter, Halving the diameter for the radius
• Formulas for the area of a rectangle, triangle, trapezium
• Algebraic expressions for the area and perimeter of a rectangle/square e.g. 2(a + b)

Procedural knowledge:

• Decimal multiplication
• Order of Operations (GEMS and BIDMAS)
• Applying exponents and roots
• Four Operations applied when using fractions
• Doubling and halving
• Formula manipulation
• Forming and Solving Expressions

Each UKMT question requires pupils to have basic knowledge facts at the fore front of their mind e.g. a square number has an odd number of factors, the first 6 rows of pascal’s triangle etc. More importantly, it is the interleaving of different concepts in each question which is why I think the questions are intelligently designed.

If pupils are quick in identifying the completing basic procedures within the following topics they can apply that knowledge to a wide selection of UKMT questions. Here are a few examples of questions which evidence this. The questions below also demonstrate how pupils’ knowledge of multiple concepts are being tested too:

In my last post, I discussed whether an instructional programme could be created to teach a deeper concept of mean. I mentioned five different properties.

After a conversation with Kris Boulton about the blog post, he spotted something interesting about property 5.

Property 5: The average is only influenced by values other than the average.

At the end of my previous post, I explained property 5. It is because when we add the average value to the data set then the resulting sum is divisible by the mean. When we add a value that is not the previous average, the resulting sum is not divisible by the new denominator. However, the second sentence is incorrect.

If I do not add the average value of the original data set, I can still have a resulting sum which is divisible by the new denominator. The third example shows this.

Example 1: Original data set with a mean of 5.

Example 2: Add the average value to the new data set – resulting sum is divisible by the new denominator. The mean has not changed.

Example 3: Not adding the average value to the new data set – resulting sum is still divisible by the new denominator. The mean has changed.

Is there another way to communicate this property?

This is an idea from Kris which he discussed as a potential second attempt to communicate property 5. It communicates property 5 nicely. It also has non examples too. If I do not add the average value then the mean is not 5.  Below is another example that can go along with the example above because the average value (19) is not a number in the original data set. Pupils are then seeing an example where the average value can be present in the data set, and where the average value will not be a number in the data set.

I have added the average value to the original data set.

The mean has not changed.

 I added the average value twice to the original data set.

The mean has not changed.

I have not added the average value to the original data set.

The mean has changed.

I think both examples are important to use because they communicate the same property. The second example communicates the message in a more explicit fashion. The first example should be included because it is a nuanced example compared to the second. This may or may not be that important, but telling a pupil that the average value can be a number in the original data set is knowledge a pupil should know.

I wanted to convey an example where the procedure of dividing by the number of values was visible to pupils. However, at the same time, what is the most important aspect is pupils seeing that we have added the average value and the new average hasn’t changed. The division isn’t adding the value that I initially thought it was. The new examples communicate a quality of sameness that can clearly communicate the property effectively. Also, showing the features of the new data set which are permissible to be a positive example, and the non examples show the features of the data set which are not present to be an example for property 5.

Arithmetic Average: developing conceptual understanding

Many pupils are taught how to calculate the arithmetic average (the mean.)  They are also taught a shallow understanding of the concept: it goes along the lines of “the mean is a calculated ‘central’ value of a set of numbers.” Or pupils have a very loose understanding of ‘average’ as colloquially referred to as ‘on average’. This is a start, but can an instructional programme be created to teach a deeper concept of the mean, accessible even to young pupils (8-14)?

I believe it can.

If so, it will aid future understanding of the weighted average at GCSE level.

Furthermore, it will lay the groundwork to understand how the trapezium rule approximates the area beneath a curve, at A Level.

I’m going to cover:

1. Properties of the mean
2. Selecting which properties to teach
3. How to teach them
4. Why it’s important

Fundamental properties of the mean

In Strauss and Efraim (1988) seven properties of average are outlined and these properties were chosen to be discussed because “they are fundamental, and tap into three aspects of the concept”.

I’m going to discuss what I think are the five most important.

Property 1: The average is always located between the extreme values

The average value of a set of data cannot be smaller than the minimum value or larger than the maximum value of the said data set.

This seems like common sense to an adult but expertise induced blindness underestimates the difficulty for pupils to understand this property of the mean.

How can this be communicated to pupils?

By example, show that the average value is never smaller than the minimum value or larger than the maximum value.

Then, test pupils’ understanding of the property using the following type of question:

For each question the average value could be true or definitely false, state whether the average value is true or false for the corresponding data set:

The following true or false questions are testing a pupil’s understanding of the property rather than their procedural knowledge of calculating the mean.

Property 2: The average is representative of the values that were averaged.

More technically: “the average is the value that is closest to all of the others in the set of values that are being averaged.”

Therefore, the average value represents all the values within the data set.

This property ties in nicely with the third property.

Property 3: The sum of the deviations from the average is 0.

Each value in the data set is a certain distance away from the average value which is clearly understood from a visual example. If we total the distances between each value and the average value, that total will equal to 0. This helps pupils to visualise that the average value is central to all the values. This highlights that the concept of the average value is again the central value to values within the data set. Furthermore, this highlights that the average value represents all the values that were averaged (property 2).

How do we communicate this to pupils?

1. Outline how to find the distance between each value and the average value.
2. Emphasise that I do (value – average value) and that the distance can be negative, if the value is smaller than the average value. However, the pupils need to picture the distances.
3. Total the distances, also tell pupils that we call this sum the sum of deviations

There are two questions that can be asked to develop understanding around property 3:

1. Show for each data set that the sum of the deviations from the average is 0 (Qs 1 – 3 only)
2. For each set of data, the average value is either true or false. Determine which of the following average values for the corresponding data set are true or false using your knowledge of the following property:

The sum of the deviations from the average is 0.

The first question is asking pupils to apply their knowledge of finding the sum of the deviations for the average value. The second question is asking pupils to apply this knowledge but then decide which of the following data sets has the correct average value.

Property 4: When one calculates the average, a value of 0, if it appears, must be taken into account.

Dylan Wiliam has an excellent hinge question that deals with this property very well.

Pupils often think they don’t have to include a 0 value when calculating the mean.

A good way to overcome this is to simply include it in one of your examples.

Seeing this in a concrete context also allows pupils to see why 0 must be included as a value in the data set.

Concrete context:

Sarah collected some money from her three siblings to raise money for charity. Hannah donated £5. Adam donated £7. Clare donated £9. Sarah did not donate any money. What was the average amount of money each of her siblings and Sarah donated?

Property 5: The average is only influenced by values other than the average.

This is a really nice point to make about arithmetic average:

Adding a value to a data set which is equal to the average value of the current data set does not influence the new average.

Why not?

Because when we add a value that is the previous average, the resulting sum is divisible by the new denominator. How can we communicate this to pupils?

The worked examples above show how the mean does not change when you add the average value of the previous data set (going from example 1 – 2 and 2 – 3). The last example shows that the mean does change when a value which is not the average of the previous data set is added.

To communicate this I would ask pupils to determine if the number added would change the average value. For example, the question series is designed for pupils to do the following

1. calculate the average for each data set
2. Decide if the mean has changed by adding a value.
3. Explain that we have added a value which is equal to the average value. Adding the average value does not influence the values being averaged.

At the end, I would explain how when we add the average value to the data set (5), we get a sum which is divisible by the denominator (20/4 = 5). When we add a value that is not the previous average, the resulting sum is not divisible by the new denominator.

In summary, these properties of arithmetic average can be taught effectively with the correct worked examples and problem exercises which communicate each property at one time. It gives pupils a spatial understanding of the mean which is above and beyond the procedural calculation of calculating the mean. I think it is highly powerful knowledge that can lend itself for more complex understanding of the mean when learning about the difference between simple mean and weighted average mean.

On Saturday, I delivered a workshop which looked at seven specific high-leverage procedures that should be automatised for pupils to successfully learn certain concepts taught in AS Mathematics. The purpose was to raise awareness of the amount of procedural fluency required for different sub-procedures in large calculations such as when completing the square, or simplifying index notation etc

Here is a bit of context behind what inspired me to deliver this workshop. I was tutoring a friend’s daughter in the summer holidays (2016) before she started learning AS Mathematics after achieving a A in her maths GCSE. My friend’s daughter is intelligent, enjoys studying mathematics and is able to learn new concepts very quickly but she struggled to make the correct decisions to complete each sub-procedure in long calculations. She would struggle to multiply an integer and a fraction, because she didn’t know what decision to make i.e. write the integer as a fraction over one.  So I spent a lot of time creating questions within drills and deliberate practice exercises for her to gain the procedural knowledge to a degree of fluency where she wasn’t struggling to complete different sub-procedures.

I am going to look at one high level procedures that I mentioned in my workshop; multiplying fractions.

Multiplying fractions.

Historically, when teaching how to multiply fractions we teach how to multiply fractions where there are two terms within the equation. However, there are several different problem types that can be taught:

• Multiplying two terms
• Multiplying more than two terms
• Multiplying terms that share factors that can be cross-simplified
• Multiplying a fraction and an integer
• Multiplying a mixed number and a fraction
• Multiplying mixed numbers
• Multiplying decimals (that can be converted into fractions) and fractions.
• Multiplying an improper fraction with and/or proper fraction

When teaching my tutee index notation she struggled to attempt the following problem because she wasn’t able to identify how to multiply an integer with a fraction. I told her explicitly how to multiply 2 and a third quickly, because that is what I do, and all pupils do this if and when they spot the pattern (but not applicable when the numerator of the fraction is not 1).

Later on in another session, my tutee struggled with the following question because she didn’t realise that a fraction can be written as the product of an integer (numerator of the fraction – 2) and a fraction (unit fraction with the same denominator – 1/3 ) e.g. 2/3 equals to the product of 2 and 1/3.

Furthermore, this piece of procedural knowledge is necessary to attempt the following question:

And again, when a question gets more complex like the one below because the base number is a mixed number, rewriting 5/2 as a product of 5 and ½ is a necessary step to evaluate the question.

However, what the take-away here is is that multiplying fractions is a high leverage procedure. A part of the procedure is to rewrite a fraction as a product of an integer and a fractions. So how can pupils learn this  to successfully automatise their procedural knowledge of multiplying fractions? This can be achieved through an understanding of multiple representations of the following possible problem types that arise when evaluating the base number/term held to a power which is a fraction.

The emphasis of exploring different problem types available within the topic of multiplying fractions, and recognising that a fraction is a product of an integer (numerator of the fraction) and a fraction (unit fraction using the same denominator), and then seeing the multiple representations of this enables a level of proficiency to allow successful learning of new content. My tutee wasn’t really learning how to simplify indices because she was focusing on learning how to complete each sub-procedure. I think this proficiency needs to be achieved in KS3.

In my next post, I shall give another example – halving!