I'm so delighted to finally be reflecting on a MathsConf. Hopefully, it is the first of many. This past Saturday I had the delight of attending and presenting at MathsConf12 in Dunfermline. An excellent addition to the Scottish maths conference calendar. I went to three excellent sessions and delivered a very intimate workshop myself on 'My Best of Twitter and Other Online Finds'. I will attempt to recap the day and provide my own reflections and hopefully how I'm going to change my practice.
The day started with a welcome from Mark McCourt (@Emaths) followed by a speed dating session. It was lovely to get to share resources with other practitioners and discuss teaching practice in an intimate setting. I certainly got some things to think about using in my own teaching.
Next were the workshops
The first session I attended was with the lovely Darren McKinnon (@dazmck) on '10 Things Every Maths Teacher Should Know'. The workshop was an excellent balance of ethos, research and practice. Darren's 10 are as follows plus my interpretation of what he was saying (which in advance will be flawed, sorry for butchering it Darren!)
1. We, not You
A teachers and their class are a team. It is much more empowering for pupils if they know you are along for the ride with them and you are as invested in their success as they are. Language is the key to developing those vital relationships with pupils.
2. The Curse of Knowledge
As teachers, we know what we know. We know how everything all makes sense and links together as Darren was saying - we know the tune. When we initially teach something all our pupils are hearing is a series of taps - they have no idea what we song we are singing. We have to be so careful when teaching that we are not asking pupils to learn a whole song rather than it's individual parts. I loved this analogy as it is so logical, how could you argue with it.
3. Memory is the Residue of Thought
Of course, Daniel Willingham got a mention in here. We need to plan lessons what for our pupils will think about because that is what they will remember and learn and that's why 'active' lessons where pupils are having 'fun' don't lead us to the success we think it should. Our pupils are thinking about the wrong thing. Being successful is fun for pupils, if we make them better at maths they will find the 'fun' in it. Is fun really what we're looking for though? Is it not motivation to be better? And does that not come from being successful in learning what you're supposed to be learning?
4. Cognitive Activation Strategies
What Active Learning should have been called so that people in education wouldn't think it means getting kids out of their seats. We're talking about highly effective teaching practices that make pupils think and not dancing around a room or making paper aeroplanes so that we can calculate the speed at which they fly.
5. Cognitive Load Theory
I can't even attempt to distill what Darren was trying to put across here without sounding like a complete know nothing but my general gist is that we must be mindful of how much of our pupils' working memories is taken up carrying out tasks that should be more automatic for them and as such make it incredibly difficult for them to fully grasp any new content. For more reading on Cognitive Load, Greg Ashman's Blog is an excellent place to start or Craig Barton's (@MrBartonMaths) podcast with him is an excellent introduction.
6. We need to take planning seriously
We need to give up planning for a single lesson and instead plan a series of lessons. Only over time will we know whether or not pupils have learnt anything or not. One lesson is not a good indication of learning. Again, further reading can be done at Kris Boulton's Blog
7. Beware Shortcuts
Nix the Tricks got a nice wee plug here but it's message still needs to be spread. We shouldn't teach tricks just to make sure a pupil can do something. We need them to know why.
8. The Benefits of Low Stakes Testing
I'll go into more depth on this one since it was my second workshop further down.
9. Stop Worshipping Past Papers
My favourite quote of the day came from this portion of Darren's workshop. 'The level of analysis we do on past papers is only useful if we plan on giving pupils the exact same past paper'. Our pupils need to be better prepared for any question and not just ones that have been similar to previous exams. If all of the drama around N5 has taught us anything is that pupils and teachers are relying too much on past papers and not thoroughly learning the content.
10. We're Never Done
We can and should all do better. We should expect more from our pupils. We should not dumb down our explanations to make it easier for pupils. They should know what a numerator and a denominator is. If they can learn the name of chemical elements and and the different types of cloud they can use proper mathematical language.
Overall, very thought provoking and definitely leads me to some additional reading.
My second workshop was with Neil Tilston (@MrTilstonMaths) and his session on Low Stakes Assessment. This is something that I introduced to Higher and N5 towards the end of the session last year and I really felt that it made a huge difference to pupil's overall attainment. I was very interested to hear how Neil was using it as it is a very different approach. First off, Neil has been using these assessments consistently with classes across the year, a four question test every week. He plans single topic assessments on work that the class have not covered in a few weeks. He records the scores for pupils, hands back the tests and goes over it. He makes sure that pupils are aware that it is a test for them, whether they do well or not so well, the reaction from him will be the same - 'here's your test back'. After a few weeks he has a wealth of data on pupils that allow him to accurately complete tracking and monitoring reports, raise any concerns about pupil attainment and plan follow up homeworks and further tests. This is something I would like to roll our across our department so hopefully after hearing Neil talk, I'll be able to convince more in the department that it would be beneficial. Already, I know how I plan to change my practice following this session.
Due to a technical problem with my laptop, I wasn't able to participate in the TweetUp - next time for sure. My workshop followed after lunch so I needed to make sure I was set up for that.
My final workshop of the day was with the fabulous Chris Smith (@aap03102). Chris is Scotland's own little comedy mathematician and musician. Again, he delivered a fabulous workshop on all the wonders he has purchased from EBay and uses in his classroom. Personal favourites were the multiplication monkey and the unhelpful calculator. With all the stuff he brought though, I'm surprised he has room to fit his kids into his classroom. It wouldn't be a Chris Smith session without a sing song so we ended with a parody of Backstreet Boys 'I want it that way' fittingly titled I bought it on EBay. A fun way to end an excellent day.
I thoroughly enjoyed the day. All the time that was planned for attendees to chat was very much appreciated and seeing some familiar faces made the day even better. Bring on #MathsConf17.
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