133. Smart Research

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Teachers often get students to do research homework for one of two reasons: to increase independent learning and develop an inquiry mindset or as an easy homework to set/mark.

Pupils often see research homework in one of two ways: as an opportunity for independent study and to find out cool facts that no-one else will find or as ‘None set’ – the teacher won’t check it and if they do there is the excuse that the computer wasn’t working, the printer had run out of ink, the internet went down or it wasn’t their classes day to use the school library.

How can you change this mindset?

Over the years I’ve set this type of task with varying degrees of success. Conscientious pupils write/type a short essay, with diagrams if appropriate – you could put it straight on the wall to be admired. Others print out webpages or copy a couple of lines from the internet/textbook/friend. Then there is the woeful list of excuses brigade …

This time I changed one thing in the task and I was frankly amazed: 100% successful completion. The change was so simple – how it could be done.

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I asked them to research letter frequency analysis. Some wrote a page in their book, some took a photo of a page from a book, some did a printscreen and others bookmarked a website. Three of these four formats involve the use of smartphones. Unless your school has draconian rules on mobile phone use in the classroom, this is a good way to engage pupils. It promotes responsible use of technology and prompted discussions on how they’d searched to get their result.

All I had to do was walk around the room and let them show me their homework while they did the follow up task. Cynics might say that they could quickly do their homework before I got to them – this is a valid comment, except the ‘Usual Suspects’ came into the room waving their phones, desperate to show me their work!

BTW I was rather amused when one of the pupils showed me a screengrab of this blog – he didn’t have a clue that I’d written it.

132. Good question, Bad question 1

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I like a topic that you can have fun with and also relates to the big bad world outside the classroom. We are constantly asked our opinions on websites, customer feedback surveys … even personality ‘tests’ in magazines. Every day there seems to be a new set of survey results hitting the news. How can you link a lesson with life?

Instead of telling pupils about biased questionning and surveys, why not give them a week or so to make a note of how often they are asked questions? They can evidence it by taking photographs, screengrabs, cutting surveys out or writing them down.

Task
Mix up the pupils into groups and get them to focus on what the question is asking and how they are expected to answer.

Note
Be prepared for some off topic discussion if they have surveys like ‘Which member of boyband X are you most likely to marry?’ or ‘Have you got what it takes to be the next (insert sportsperson or team manager here)?’

Development
Discuss which questions are fair (unbiased) and which are leading you to a certain opinion. If there are multiple choice answers, do they cover all possible ideas? Think about who would have access to this survey (sampling/sample size).

Challenge
Imagine you work for a website, magazine or shop.
1. Design a fair survey researching opinions on a relevant topic.
2. Design a very biased survey on the same topic.
3. Carry out the surveys on the same people.
4. Compare results.
5. What impact did the bias/unbiased style have?

131. App of the Day: MyScript calculator

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A short post today. This week J introduced me to the ‘MyScript Calculator’ app.

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It’s a rather nifty app that converts freehand writing into mathematical calculations and solves them. It is available for most formats of smartphone and you can visit their website here.

These examples from the website show what it is capable of doing – I’m sure there is a lesson here somewhere.

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130. Banging your head against a y-axis

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Confession time!

I like teaching co-ordinates.

I like teaching plotting graphs.

But …..

Getting pupils to draw axes drives me up the y-axis.

 

Right now I can sense people shaking their heads – why are you doing co-ordinate plotting if they can’t draw axes?

 

The problem is that they can draw axes, but for some pupils it takes about half an hour to get lines drawn with a ruler, axes marks equally spaced, lines (not gaps) numbered. For other pupils, their particular SEN means it’s a struggle using equipment. Should I be penalising pupils because they are slow to draw axes, when I know they’ll work brilliantly if I give them axes?

 

So I’ve put together an A4 sheet of axes. There are two identical sets: the x-axis goes from 0-10, the y-axis goes from 0-18. There is also space to write name and Question number so you can keep track of who has done what. I know there are many websites that will generate these for you on demand, but I’ve just used what was available to me at the time to make something that works for my pupils.

 

You can download it from TES resources here.

129. A pie without a stab wound

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A pie? Without a stab wound? What craziness is this?

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From a cook’s perspective this pie divider is a great way to cut pie and not stab yourself. Google ‘pie divider’ for other genius/bonkers ideas.

But … back to school:

Imagine you are teaching pie charts. You’ve discussed what they are about, how to calculate angles, you may even have used the earlier blog post on Human Pie Charts. The class settle down to apply all their knowledge, when the floodgates open:

  • ‘What’s that thingy you draw circles with?’
  • ‘My pencil doesn’t fit in my compasses?’
  • ‘I haven’t got a compass.’ (Do you mean pair of compasses?)
  • ‘I did have a compass (!), but Mr X took it off me in Y.’ (Why?) ‘ I was stabbing Z with it!’
  • ‘My compasses keep going wiggly’
  • ‘I’ve made a hole in my book’
  • ‘I forgot to mark where I put the point bit’
  • …..etc

By the time all this is sorted out, all their shiny new knowledge has shrivelled away.

 

A helping hand

To assist with this issue, I’ve put together an A4 sheet of 6 piechart templates that you could enlarge on a copier. They’ll get you through the first pie-chart drawing lesson and set you up for
Round 2:

‘You know that pointy thing you told us to bring to this lesson and I even wrote it in my homework planner well I had one in my new geometry set aren’t you impressed that I finally bought one but my mum said I had to lend it to my brother for his test and he’s only just given it back and he’s wrecked it and he said he’ll get me a new one but he doesn’t get paid until next Saturday and he’ll forget but that’s the reason …I haven’t got a compass(!) today.

128. Book of the Week 1

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If you haven’t had a chance to take part in the rather excellent ‘How to Learn Maths’ online course at Stanford University, led by Jo Boaler – don’t worry!

 

Get reading the rather brilliant book ‘The Elephant in the Classroom’ instead. You’ll find yourself going ‘Yes, I know what you mean!’, ‘I’d never thought of that …’ and ‘I need to try this out’, before you’ve even finished it.

 

127. How to save money

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A nice easy question to start the term with:

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You go to the supermarket to buy your favourite shower gel (or other product). It usually costs £2.99. You have three £1 coins ready, when you notice the price has temporarily been reduced to £1.

What is the most money you can save?

Hint: Think of future gain

Solution:
It’s not the obvious £1.99 saved – that is instant gratification.

It is actually better to buy 3 bottles:

Saving = Actual price x 3 – Reduced price x 3

Saving = £2.99 x 3 – £1 x 3 = £8.97 – £3 = £5.97

If you spent the whole £3 (which is one bottle plus one pence), you get a long term saving which is worth far more, for just 1p more.

Teaching the concept of delayed benefit is rather useful, especially if you are trying to encourage open investigations or looking at time spent on personal revision.