Teaching Mathematics Outside the Box - By Maths Scholar 2023/2024
The first Maths Scholars Celebration workshop was ‘Teaching Mathematics outside the box’ by Alison Kiddle (Mathematics Education Consultant).
Scholars first reflected on the metaphorical boxes teachers feel constrained by. Several themes emerged, including the stressful nature of the profession, the requirement to both support and challenge, the intensity of the curriculum, maths anxiety and a potential lack of resilience in this subject, and negative societal messages about Maths.
Alison then shared 3 pieces of wisdom, each pre-empted by an activity, to break out of these boxes. The surprising constant between all activities was that they all involved… BOXES.
1. USE PUZZLES:
We first filled boxes with numbers from 1 through 9 and added the three resulting three-digit numbers together to get as close as possible to 1,500. While we all got very close, no one ever reached 1,500, so Alison reminded us never to set an impossible task (‘get as close as possible’, not ‘get exactly 1,500’). The onus here is on teachers to interrupt the class, give them additional clues, or provide more general support before frustration and anxiety set in, which emphasised the need to get to know our classes and the signs that they might be getting to that dangerous zone.
2. GET HANDS ON:
Following pictorial instructions, Alison then got us to fold Origami Masu boxes (pictured). This activity is not only helpful for pupils to follow instructions precisely, but it is also related to Pythagoras’ theorem, bisects, diagonals of squares, and 2D and 3D shapes and their dimensions. While such activities are not feasible in every lesson, they are a nice addition to mathematical concepts that lend themselves to kinaesthetic learning.
3. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF TECHNOLOGY:
Given squared paper, we folded it into a box with a height between 3 and 9cm and holding it together using paper clips (again given a pictorial representation to see what we were aiming for). The discussion anchored around the volume of these boxes and their maximum and minimum volumes based on the chosen height, getting pupils to think about these properties and calculations instead of just performing them. Alison used a spreadsheet to calculate the volume of each box size and showed the variables’ relationships.
Between each activity, Alison included palate cleanser questions using everyday pictures and LEGO shapes (all available at https://alisonkiddle.co.uk/category/lego-maths/). The application of their LEGO challenges is endless; in fact I already used a LEGO question with a Year 8 class as part of a starter activity to get pupils thinking about the area of rectangles before their teacher introduced the area of parallelograms.
A workshop that was not only fun, cross-curricular, but also immediately applicable, what a fantastic start to the day (and ITT year)!
By Maths Scholar 2023/2024
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