An Innovative, Open-Ended Approach to Mathematics Teaching Pedagogy

I am incredibly excited this week to be procrastinating from report writing by taking up the opportunity to write for Education Services Australia, and their incredible online resource: maths300.

For those of you who haven’t heard of the resource, here is an excerpt from their ‘About‘ page, below:

“maths300 is less prescriptive than traditional pedagogy.  The lessons build on important algorithmic skills, but also encourage students to develop reasoning and communication skills beyond the textbook. Students are often required to work in groups, to think creatively and to apply a number of different strategies to solve a problem. This process is called Working Mathematically and features in most lessons. The extensions section provides huge scope for extended investigations and cross-curricula activities.”

The lessons are presented as mathematical adventures, and all of them contain rich activities that promote discussion encouraging students to work like a mathematician (one of our numeracy catch-cries!). In our classroom, I have used them exclusively with Kevin Cummins’ Maths Toolbox which he shares on his superb education resource, Edgalaxy.

‘maths300 lessons are presented in an illustrative style based on the Mathematics Curriculum and Teaching Program (MCTP) style. The MCTP is arguably the most successful professional development program prior to maths300.’

In combination with this, schools are able to download the accompanying software package which, although simple looking, allows students to complete investigations with a real-life contextual edge. One example is the Footy Finals lesson (great for September, AFL or NRL!) where students have the opportunity to investigate the chance of their team winning the premiership starting from 1st-8th position.

When I submit my maths300 lesson plan, I also plan to make it available via OpenEdToolbox, so watch this space!

Cheers,

Teddy.

Have you used MCTP or Maths300 in your schools/classrooms?

What sorts of maths ‘adventures’ have you taken your students on?

How do you apply real-life context to your numeracy classroom?