1.
Welcome and Feedback
2.
An interesting thought
3.
Derren Brown – a gift of an idea for maths teachers
4.
Website of the month
5.
Puzzle Competition Results
6.
Be A Wizard With Numbers is Finally Here!
1.
Welcome to the First Newsletter of the New
Academic Year!
Dear Maths Friends- welcome, and Happy New Academic Year to you
all. I hope that everyone has had a refreshing break. I have had an eventful
summer – being shot at, having my car window smashed and satnav
stolen, moving to a new office, writing a couple of new projects, organizing
the Launch party (see item 6) and as a family we managed to get away to Ibiza
for a couple of weeks, where all my good intentions regarding writing new
materials went out the window!
Still in the pipeline are books on Calculators, to be written in
association with my sponsor, Hewlett-Packard Calculators, which may well be
free for a limited time, but only to subscribers, Maths Outdoors (my
longest-running book project ever!), and a third mystery book whose working
title is ‘Getting Started’. There are not many details to share at the moment,
but as ever, subscribers to this newsletter will be the first to know.
2. An interesting Thought
It has long been accepted that you only fully learn something
really well once you have tried to teach it to others. But recently I have been
thinking about the other side of that coin. Perhaps to teach maths more
effectively to others, we must constantly remind ourselves how it feels to be
learners. I am wondering whether periodically forcing ourselves to learn
something new (for me it was learning to
do roller-booting with my children last year – this year I have joined a
table-tennis club as the worst player there) will enable us to be far more
in tune with the way in which our students experience our lessons. As an
extreme example, I have a friend who taught A-level for the first time a few
years ago, and since it had been so many years since he himself had trained, he
too did the coursework and sat it along with them!
So there is a thought to start the year off – the more aware of
ourselves as learners we become, perhaps the more empathetic a teacher we will
be. Let me know your thoughts.
3. Derren Brown – a gift of an idea for maths
teachers!
Whatever you may think of Derren Brown (I think he’s a brilliant
showman), anyone who watched Derren brown predict the Lottery Numbers last
Saturday must have wondered how he did it. Therefore, when he promised to
reveal all I watched with some considerable interest, hoping that he would
reveal his method.
How naïve of me, but what he did do was provide anyone who
teaches mathematics with loads of potential.
Consider the hoax claim that he used the average of people’s
guesses in order to select the numbers that would be drawn. This could lead
into a great discussion or averages, and of probability, and you can
demonstrate the cleverness of the fake explanation thus:
You will need a clear jar
containing between 30 and 60 marbles and a book of raffle tickets. Ask the
class to write down, without showing anyone else, how many marbles are in the
jar. Of course, it is likely that the average guess is going to be quite close
as they should be able to look at the marbles and make reasonable estimates.
Now ask them to write down a number between 1 and 49, and again get them to
calculate the average. Then draw out a raffle ticket at random from an opaque
box (having put only numbers 1 to 49 in the box.) Ask them to predict which of
their guesses (number of marbles or raffle tickets) will be closer, and why.
And importantly, what might happen if you did it a second time with a different
number of marbles? This should help younger children appreciate the difference
between an estimate and a guess, while older ones should be able to develop
their understanding of randomness and probability.
I’d be interested to know how you get on with this – I might
even try it at my book launch party – see item 6!
4. Website
of the Month
This is a nice site I came across on a forum recently, and
although I usually only recommend free sites, this one has enough free content
on it to merit a mention, as the free content is of a good standard. Of course,
the author is hoping that if you like it enough you will go on to buy the other
stuff, but there is no pressure to do so. So check out the IWB resources at http://www.mathsframe.co.uk/free_resources.asp
5. Puzzle
Competition Results!
Last month’s puzzle from Doug Buchanan was a lovely old puzzle,
with several people providing the correct answer. For the record, the simplest
way to make 24 using two 3s and two 8s is as follows:
8 ÷ (3- (8÷3))
There are other solutions if you allow factorials and cube roots
but this I think is the simplest and the most elegant.
Also, I promised the solution to Chris Smith’s pool balls
problem from June’s Newsletter, so here goes:
6 14 15
3 13
8 1
12 10
7 11
2
4 9
5
There may well be others, but can you prove how many?!
As nobody got this right, I am awarding the prize to Doug
Buchanan for providing us with the 8s and 3s puzzle, which attracted a record
number of entries from whom it would be unfair to choose just one! So, if you
want to have a go, why not submit your favourite
problem for next time. If I use it, you will win a calculator, courtesy of Hewlett
Packard Calculators.
6. Be A Wizard With
Numbers is finally published!
I was very excited to see the first copy of the book land on
my doormat last week. I hope it will prove to be popular – last time I looked,
Amazon only had one copy
remaining (though they may only have had two to start with, I suppose!)
The launch party is this Friday evening, and I know that many of you are
attending. I look forward to welcoming you, as do the caterers the barstaff, the live band and a couple of surprises!
A report will be included next month.
That’s it for September, but I will be back in October with some
more mathematical musings for you, including a very cool maths assembly thing
for those of you who teach in Church-aided or other Christian schools.
Thanks for being a subscriber, and remember,
if you enjoy the newsletter, please encourage others to sign up at http://andrewjeffrey.co.uk/newsletter.asp
AJx
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