Monthly Archives: May 2016

303. Extra, extra, read all about it!

It’s that time of year again – end of year assessments. You do everything you can for your students, including ensuring all students get their SEN entitlement … but have you ever wondered if extra time actually works? Can you prove to a student that staying those extra 15 minutes is worth it? Does your SEN co-ordinator ask for evidence?

image

Image credit: Paper Mate Flair (my favourite felt tips as a child, now relaunched)

Now, let’s make this clear – I’m not fussy about pen colour in marking and I’d never penalise a student for not having a fancy colour pen. Student work in blue or black is fine by me.

Back to the extra time element. When extra time kicks in, get your students to change pen colour. At the end total up the marks gained in regular pen and the marks gained in coloured pen. Total them up and you have your assessment result. You also have what they would have got if they hadn’t had extra time. You have just got evidence for the SEN department and you can demonstrate whether it made a difference.

In conclusion, I did this with my Y12 students and for two students it showed they can do the work, they just needed processing time – it made a two grade difference!

302. Log Proof Puzzle

If you can guess where today’s blog image came from you obviously consume too much damn fine cherry pie and fresh coffee!

log lady

Image credit: Pinterest

You may have guessed that the topic of this post is logs. If you are introducing the rules for adding and subtracting logs or revising them, I have just the resource for you. It’s a basic proof of both rules with a twist. The instructions are in the wrong order and you must rearrange them into the right order.

Easy!

Are you sure?

For those of you who have a student or two who rush everything and don’t read the instructions there is a sting in the tail. One of the lines of proof is a tiny bit wrong. The methodical student will find it, the one who races through may end up changing more than one line – hence breaking the rules.

Have fun!

Proving log rules for addition and subtraction

Answer: It’s the ‘Log Lady’ from the cult classic ‘Twin Peaks’!