Tanks, goats and buses- Anne Watson

Consistent use of images supports the understanding of mathematical structures. The outstanding examples of this in mathematics have become ‘canonical’, that is part of the mathematical canon. At school level these canonical images are: number line; function graphs (thankyou Descartes); 2-dimensional combination grids (thankyou Omar Khayyam and Cayley); Venn diagrams (thankyou Cantor and Charles Dodgson).  […]

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Handrails – Anne Watson

I have been floating the idea of treating key mathematics ideas as handrails for teachers and students.  Recently several positive comments about this perspective have floated back to me, so I am sharing the idea with you. In mathematics, teaching key ideas could be handrails. Handrails can be held, used as guides or supports, or […]

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A Little Advice for NQTs

Congratulations on surviving your first term in teaching! Now that you’re into Term 2, and are getting used to proceedings, here are three suggestions that have always served me well in my teaching: Don’t plan lessons That was a little misleading, of course you need to plan lessons. But, as you may already be realising, […]

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Euclid knew about diagrams

Euclid knew that using similar diagrams over and over again, each time looking at them in a different way, was a powerful way to see mathematics as a connected whole. Euclid used similar diagrams several times throughout his Book 2 and Book 13 to provide visual reasoning contexts for relationships between segment lengths on straight […]

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Exercise is good for you

‘Practice makes perfect’ is a commonplace phrase, but like most commonplace phrases, it is an over simplification. Certainly an expert has to put in lots and lots of practice, but the psychology of successful exercising involves a particular flow of energy. The mathematics has, in some way, to inspire the learner to want to practice. […]

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