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düzgündörtyüzlü çizimi.ggb renkli - Kopya (4)

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Im a math teacher at a  science high school in Mersin/TURKEY.
Mersin is  a seaside city in southern Turkey .
Maiden Castle (Kızkalesi) or as it used to be called Korykos, is a small town situated 60 km west of Mersin. The town attracts visitors’ attention with its climate, beautiful sight, wide beaches and clean sea. Today this coastal town can be regarded as one of the hidden treasures of the Mediterranean with its nature and historical value.

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WİTH GEOMETRY

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EFL ERDEMLİ / MERSİN /TURKEY

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Getting out of the classroom facilitates authentic or experiential learning (the engagement of learners with the world as they actually experience it) and gives better access to the main pathways to learning (Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic). Pupils not only experience mathematics in concrete and novel settings, but can be liberated from the sometimes restrictive expectations of the classroom. As a result, we can expect to find the following benefits:

·         higher levels of motivation

·         almost limitless resources

·         an opportunity to see maths as cross-curricular

·         greater curiosity leading to more effective exploration

·         creative ideas driving investigations

·         meaningful application of problem solving strategies and thinking skills

·         a heightened sense of purpose and relevance

·         the all important bridge between theory and reality

·         greater independence and an improved attitude to learning

·         greater enjoyment and achievement

·         a realisation that our environment offers opportunities for learning and enjoyment

In November 2006 the UK Department for Education and Skills  published its manifesto 'Learning Outside the Classroom'. The  Manifesto opens with the statement, “We believe that every young person should experience the world beyond the classroom as an essential part of learning and personal development, whatever their age, ability or circumstances.” Such experiences “help us to make sense of the world around us by making links between feelings and learning. They stay with us into adulthood and affect our behaviour, lifestyle and work. They influence our values and the decisions we make. They allow us to transfer learning experienced outside to the classroom and vice versa”. The document offers an insight on the benefits, strategies, aims and supporting actions connected to outdoor learning.

Make sure to take a look at the brochure created in the project "Path of Innovation through Europe", that aimed to intruduce orienteering activities in school. There are a lot of mathematical activities and ideas there!

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ΦΩΤΙΟΣ ΧΑΤΖΗΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΟΥ

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Here are some activity examples for taking Math outdoors. If you need more inspiration, take a look at the eTwinning project called GOAL . Teachers taking part in this project cooperated, planed and shared ideas of lessons outside the classroom, which are a part of ordinary school timetable. During lessons pupils solved concrete problems situated in typical context and environment.

Another project you can find inspiration in is Math City Map. It offers weekly math tasks, an application to work with, a portal, math trails, tutorials and much more. Take a look!

-Treasure hunts are complex activities that can have many forms. You can use QR codes for creating the tasks, such as in this one, that took part in an open-air museum.

- Measuring the height of a tree or building using a simple theodolite in this activity from Mathisfun

- Six examples of #StreetMath adventures suitable for elementary students too. In addition, take a look at the two documents below.

- Pre-primary activities examples and more fun activities for primary school students here, here and here

- Try some "Messy Outdoor Math" like these Scottish teachers and students such as in the video below.

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Learning Through Landscapes & Grounds for Learning

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If you need some cross-curricular outdoors lessons plans, you can find some at http://countrysideclassroom.org.uk/resources/689 (copy-paste the link if it does not work from here)

-Take part in the Erathosthenes experiment, that takes place each year, in March and September

- Try some statistics study on leaves

Tools

As the activities take place outside the classroom or even outside the school premises, the tools for such activities have to be easily portable: for example measuring tools and cameras are very useful. Tablets or smartphones can offer a wide range of apps. Here are some examples.

Android apps: sketching and annotation tools (such as Sketch Box or Skitch), Geogebra, mindmapping tools (such as Mindomo), QR readers (such as ScanLife), photo editors (such as Pixlr or PicsArt), sound recording and sharing (such as Soundcloud), screenshot tools (such as Screenshot), doodling tools (such as You Doodle or Sketch for Keep), or even astronomy tools (such as SkyView). A very simple tool for creating QR codes treasure hunts is here or you can find ready-made (paid!) treasure hunts on this website.

And a few useful iPad apps:  these tools for recording audio notes . A good tool can also be Educreations, for creating a lesson and sharing it. You can draw on a whiteboard or on photos while narrating what you are doing. The lesson can also be published on the Educreations website. I am not an iPad user, so if you need more STE(A)M apps, you can find them herehttps://ictevangelist.com/periodic-table-steam-ipad-apps/

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Optional Reading- Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory

According to Gardner, the author of the Multiple Intelligences theory, the aim of education “should be to develop intelligences and to help people reach vocational and avocational goals that are appropriate to their particular spectrum of intelligences. People who are helped to do so, he believes, feel more engaged and competent and therefore more inclined to serve society in a constructive way." Gardner states that anyone possesses different kinds of intelligence and therefore can learn, remember, perform, and understand in different ways. According to his ideas, "we are all able to know the world through language, logical-mathematical analysis, spatial representation, musical thinking, the use of the body to solve problems or to make things, an understanding of other individuals, and an understanding of ourselves. Where individuals differ is in the strength of these intelligences - the so-called profile of intelligences -and in the ways in which such intelligences are invoked and combined to carry out different tasks, solve diverse problems, and progress in various domains."

The theory he proposed in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences differentiates intelligence into eight specific (primarily sensory) "modalities": verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial-visual, bodily-kinesthetic, musical-rhythmic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic, rather than seeing it as dominated by a single general ability.  (In more recent works, a ninth type, the existentialist intelligence, is added.) While all these types are present in any person, one or several are dominant for each of us.  They are located in different parts of the brain and can work together, as well as independently. All of them can be improved throughout our life, provided we have a growth mindset, not a fixed one. This theory explains why some pupils remember best what they have seen, while others are good with words, or at building things, some are very creative but find it hard to remember formulas or work in formal Mathematics. In order to get the best results, a teacher has to meet the learning needs of the students to examine methods for tracing and accommodating  these individual ways of learning in his/her teaching.

The Multiple Intelligences  theory states that pupils will benefit more from a broader vision of education, that would drive teachers to use different methodologies, exercises and activities to reach all students, not just those who excel at linguistic and logical intelligence and challenege them to discover "ways that will work for this student learning this topic" According to Gardner’s theory, students have different types of dominant intelligence and they can be reached more effectively by using a wider array of approaches. “Pupil engagement is a multi-faceted construct that includes affective, behavioral and cognitive dimensions” (Fredricks, Blumenfeld and Paris , 2004) More references on the MI theory here.

While the teacher can choose the approach used for presenting a certain notion or task, it’s important also that the students learn to understand and value their own approach to successful mathematics learning, to understand the conditions under which they learn best and to broaden their approach to learning. At the same time, this will help them learn to value their peers. Teachers can encourage students to reflect on how they grasp mathematical ideas the best, as well as understand that although students learn in different ways they can still be equally effective as learners and can learn the same ideas.

Further reading and food for thought

Here is a comic explaining the MI theory in a visual manner…so using its own tools!

Article and video interview with Howard Gardner on Multiple Intelligences

Description of each MI type, including characteristics, class activities, useful tech tools etc.

Explanations from the psychological point of view

Scientific paper by John Munro on Multiple Intelligences in Mathematics Teach

Multiple Intelligence Tests

You can find out what is your intelligence profile with this test!

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Origami Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

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Very often mathematics is viewed by children as being about numbers.  Some children suffer from the misconception that it is only about numbers and if their numeric ability hasn’t resulted in an enjoyment of learning about numbers to date, they might be inclined to label ‘mathematics’ as uninteresting and therefore risk missing out on the beauteous world of geometry waiting to be discovered.  The awe-inspiring wonder of patterns, shapes, visual proofs and possibilities that could be explored in classrooms and can lead to, at the least an appreciation of, and at best a fascination with, the mathematics we see in the world around us every day.    Paper and string are cheap and easy to use anywhere, which makes them valuable materials in any class. Students can be encouraged to use their kinesthetic intelligence to play with tangram, create tessellations, make geometrical paper objects, such as platonic solids and carry out simple proofs of their geometrical properties through paper folding or origami, create drawing techniques etc. Students will also use measurement and manipulation and investigation, for example to study the area/perimeter connection or “discover” the number PI. Some other mathematical concepts that can be studied with paper and/or string activities include sequences, symmetry, fractions, sums and combinatorics, geometric constructions and many more. In this way, they will understand relations, rules and theorems in a kinesthetic way. These activities engage students and sneakily enhance their skills -- including improved spatial perception and logical and sequential thinking. For example, origami has been found to strengthen an understanding of geometric concepts, formulas, and labels, making them come alive, connect abstract knowledge such as fractions to real life, enhance thinking and problem-solving skills, as well as lateral thinking. More on the benefits of origami in this article http://www.edutopia.org/blog/why-origami-improves-students-skills-ainissa-ramirez and document  Students who find the accuracy of folding challenging can be urged to reflect on their own experience of other physical skills learnt:  “Do you remember learning to walk? Did you learn without making mistakes then? Did you fall over a lot? How did you improve? Do you now walk around without really having to think about it?  Look at how skilled you’ve become at something that you practise every day!” and shown that practice really does produce progress and that their perseverance will also develop alongside their precision and fluency of folding, without the barrier of being mentally ‘stuck’ (i.e. they know what to do to improve). Read more about purposeful folding activities in this article.

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Very often mathematics is viewed by children as being about numbers.  Some children suffer from the misconception that it is only about numbers and if their numeric ability hasn’t resulted in an enjoyment of learning about numbers to date, they might be inclined to label ‘mathematics’ as uninteresting and therefore risk missing out on the beauteous world of geometry waiting to be discovered.  The awe-inspiring wonder of patterns, shapes, visual proofs and possibilities that could be explored in classrooms and can lead to, at the least an appreciation of, and at best a fascination with, the mathematics we see in the world around us every day.    Paper and string are cheap and easy to use anywhere, which makes them valuable materials in any class. Students can be encouraged to use their kinesthetic intelligence to play with tangram, create tessellations, make geometrical paper objects, such as platonic solids and carry out simple proofs of their geometrical properties through paper folding or origami, create drawing techniques etc. Students will also use measurement and manipulation and investigation, for example to study the area/perimeter connection or “discover” the number PI. Some other mathematical concepts that can be studied with paper and/or string activities include sequences, symmetry, fractions, sums and combinatorics, geometric constructions and many more. In this way, they will understand relations, rules and theorems in a kinesthetic way. These activities engage students and sneakily enhance their skills -- including improved spatial perception and logical and sequential thinking. For example, origami has been found to strengthen an understanding of geometric concepts, formulas, and labels, making them come alive, connect abstract knowledge such as fractions to real life, enhance thinking and problem-solving skills, as well as lateral thinking. More on the benefits of origami in this article http://www.edutopia.org/blog/why-origami-improves-students-skills-ainissa-ramirez and document  Students who find the accuracy of folding challenging can be urged to reflect on their own experience of other physical skills learnt:  “Do you remember learning to walk? Did you learn without making mistakes then? Did you fall over a lot? How did you improve? Do you now walk around without really having to think about it?  Look at how skilled you’ve become at something that you practise every day!” and shown that practice really does produce progress and that their perseverance will also develop alongside their precision and fluency of folding, without the barrier of being mentally ‘stuck’ (i.e. they know what to do to improve). Read more about purposeful folding activities in this article.

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As a project example, take a look at this project, that combines art and design with mathematics, aimed to create models for all 5 of the platonic solids and compare the mathematical structure of those solids to their 2-D equivalents known as Tessellations.(opening the document requires Google Chrome). For those of you who understand Spanish, here is an interesting topology project.

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Make Your Own Impossible Cylinder--Mathematical Association of America's Math Horizons

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DIY your own mathematical optical illusion! Download this printable template (pdf) from the Mathematical Association of America: http://bit.ly/ImpossibleCylinder Read about the mathematics behind this illusion in "Sugihara's Impossible Cylinder" (David Richeson, Math Horizons, September 2016, pp. 18-19, http://www.maa.org/MathHorizons. Math Horizons is a publication of the Mathematical Association of America).

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- This publication is a pedagogical toolkit, which presents hands-on materials and detailed methodological descriptions for the realisation of almost forty interactive math-art workshops in the classroom. Most of the activities the authors selected can be completed with paper or cardboard in a cost-effective way and equipment readily available in most educational institutions, such as scissors and colouring pencils, and, at most, a photocopier.- Folding activities from NRICH- For preschoolers- bead counting- Building paper rockets (for Primary students) and more activities for this age group. -Fractions explained by folding paper in the video below

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- This publication is a pedagogical toolkit, which presents hands-on materials and detailed methodological descriptions for the realisation of almost forty interactive math-art workshops in the classroom. Most of the activities the authors selected can be completed with paper or cardboard in a cost-effective way and equipment readily available in most educational institutions, such as scissors and colouring pencils, and, at most, a photocopier.- Folding activities from NRICH- For preschoolers- bead counting- Building paper rockets (for Primary students) and more activities for this age group. -Fractions explained by folding paper in the video below

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Please subscribe and share! New videos added weekly. Do you have any lightbulb moments to share with us? Comment below. This ORIGO ONE series of videos show you how to create lightbulb moments for your students. These videos take a mathematics concept and break it into pieces that are easy to understand and only take a minute to watch.

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 The Math in a simple A4 paper! . Here you have the second part of the activity.- Take a look at the fold and cut activity in the video. You can find more examples here and here.  If you need some templates for such activities, they can be found at http://howtofoldit.org/

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 The Math in a simple A4 paper! . Here you have the second part of the activity.- Take a look at the fold and cut activity in the video. You can find more examples here and here.  If you need some templates for such activities, they can be found at http://howtofoldit.org/

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- A puzzle from MathPickle about the Minotaur and the labyrinth- Printable paper games http://krazydad.com/ - Resources for origami http://artcuratorforkids.com/origami-for-kids/  also suitable for younger students, origami snowflakes and stars- From our last project, here are two more activities: making fractal Christmas trees and Dressing Mr. Cube- Building the platonic solids- A lesson about volumes- A simple string art activity here- Drawing the three conics (ellipse, parabola and hyperbola) by pin-and-string constructions.

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- A puzzle from MathPickle about the Minotaur and the labyrinth- Printable paper games http://krazydad.com/ - Resources for origami http://artcuratorforkids.com/origami-for-kids/  also suitable for younger students, origami snowflakes and stars- From our last project, here are two more activities: making fractal Christmas trees and Dressing Mr. Cube- Building the platonic solids- A lesson about volumes- A simple string art activity here- Drawing the three conics (ellipse, parabola and hyperbola) by pin-and-string constructions.

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MathLapse: Constructions by pin-and-string: conics | Construções de fio esticado: cónicas

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- Creating interactive notebooks- More Math art project ideas here, if you need more inspiration

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- Creating interactive notebooks- More Math art project ideas here, if you need more inspiration

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Pythagoras' theorem and proof (cut-out demo)

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Thinglink is a tool for creating interactive images by annotating. You can add links to a wide variety of content areas. You can look at this example. Tess is a tool for creating interactive lessons by combining online content, media and files. It's reliable and easy to use. You already had the A4 Math examples above. Artsteps is a tool for creating virtual exhibitions. You can create a gallery with your students' works. Here is an example. And one more. Sliceform Studio is a free tool for creating Mathematical art. You can create your own tiling design online, customize it, download it and assembly it in reality. There are tutorials and a gallery for inspiration. 

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Thinglink is a tool for creating interactive images by annotating. You can add links to a wide variety of content areas. You can look at this example. Tess is a tool for creating interactive lessons by combining online content, media and files. It's reliable and easy to use. You already had the A4 Math examples above. Artsteps is a tool for creating virtual exhibitions. You can create a gallery with your students' works. Here is an example. And one more. Sliceform Studio is a free tool for creating Mathematical art. You can create your own tiling design online, customize it, download it and assembly it in reality. There are tutorials and a gallery for inspiration. 

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Another important aspect is the students’ mindset, as a progress factor. A growth mindset, that is the understanding that the abilities and intelligence can be developped (as opposed to a fixed mindset, the idea that they are fixed and cannot be influenced) has been shown by researchers to have powerful effects on students’ motivation and learning. You can find out more about the mindsets and their importance in school success here or by watching this interview with Stanford professor  and author Carol Dweck. In 1988, Dr. Dweck first presented a research-based model to show the impact of mindsets. She showed how a person’s mindset sets the stage for either performance goals or learning goals. A student with a performance goal might be worried about looking smart all the time, and avoid challenging work. On the other hand, a student with a learning goal will pursue interesting and challenging tasks in order to learn more. In subsequent studies, Dr. Dweck found that people’s theories about their own intelligence had a significant impact on their motivation, effort, and approach to challenges. Those who believe their abilities are malleable are more likely to embrace challenges and persist despite failure. This model of the fixed vs. growth mindset shows how cognitive, affective, and behavioral features are linked to one’s beliefs about the malleability of their intelligence. The infographic at the bottom of this page demonstrates this research, and how different mindsets lead to different patterns of behavior.

Here is a list of six tips for nurturing a growth mindset from Carol Dweck and a longer talk she gave on this topic at EdWeek's  "Leaders to Learn From" event in Washington. You can read another article about her research. And here are some resources for teaching growth mindset from Edutopia, with a special section on Math.

Finally, you can test your own mindset here and learn how to develop your own growth mindset! You can also use this mindset quizz for students (it's free, but requires login, so you need to create an account).

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Activities involving movement and constructions

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Activities involving movement and constructions

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Math teachers who have only paper and pencil at their disposal, find some of the curriculum contents very difficult to illustrate. A lot more objects and materials besides string and paper can be used for modeling mathematical knowledge, from Lego pieces to cakes. This approach stimulates children to learn, helping them to understand and use math in ways they’ve never considered. Activities such as object manipulation, dancing, movement, measuring, mime, crochet can be turned into an opportunity to learn Math. Students can prove theorems and properties in a practical way, based on object manipulation, self-made models, experiments and observations, using different materials and auxiliary tools, such as in this practical lesson on volumes where making the shapes, physically measuring them and turning them round in their hands helped the students understand what they were doing far more than simply working from a textbook would have done. As another example, they can build and use a wooden device to prove the theorem of Thales or build a vehicle propelled by a balloon and studying its movement. They can revise Math terms though mime or inquiry on arithmetic progressions by doing crochet, understand coordinates with dance or cross-stitch. In this way, geometrical rules, axioms and operations are „physically” elaborated and stimulate kinesthetic learning. Turning the Math class into a workshop is certainly not easy and it cannot be a day-to-day practice maybe, but trying it from time to time can bring calculations to life.

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Culturally Situated Design Tools is a project that aims to teach Math and Computer Science though culture. Many cultural designs are based on math and computing principles. These activities try to help students learn these principles as they simulate the original artifacts, and develop their own creations

Here is another interesting project or teaching unit on building bridges.

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Movement and Math Activity - Bilateral Math

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How I Teach Math & Dance at the Same Time

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 One more dance activity- a game focused on parallel lines- Using Cuisenaire rods to discover and build math concepts with young students or even studying series with older ones- Counting Claws, a funny activity for preschoolers.- Barbie Bunjee- Jumping- a lesson that applies the knowledge of the line of best fit while designing bunjee jumps.- Jumpings Statistics, an activity ispired by this award-winning lesson plan. Click on the pointers to see the worksheet and the video

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 One more dance activity- a game focused on parallel lines- Using Cuisenaire rods to discover and build math concepts with young students or even studying series with older ones- Counting Claws, a funny activity for preschoolers.- Barbie Bunjee- Jumping- a lesson that applies the knowledge of the line of best fit while designing bunjee jumps.- Jumpings Statistics, an activity ispired by this award-winning lesson plan. Click on the pointers to see the worksheet and the video

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 Studying symmetry with Lego and butterfies. More Lego activities here, here and here- Building a geodezic dome with straw- in a combined math and engeneering activity- A formative assessement lesson on motion laws called Rolling Cups, complete with lesson plan and media resources. And another simple activity with plastic cups. 

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 Studying symmetry with Lego and butterfies. More Lego activities here, here and here- Building a geodezic dome with straw- in a combined math and engeneering activity- A formative assessement lesson on motion laws called Rolling Cups, complete with lesson plan and media resources. And another simple activity with plastic cups. 

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 - Our activity on the Vitruvian Man, trying to find the Golden Ratio in our own bodies and find out how perfect we are. - Baking Geometry- how about some sweet conic sections? More of Eugenia Chang's Math cooking videos are here. - Rocket Science- Working in teams, students design and build rockets powered by water and pressurized air.  Using what they learn about the fundamentals of force and motion, they build a fully functional rocket including:  payload compartment, propulsion system, recovery system and guidance system.   - Blocks activities for young students.- Designing a perfect parking lot -  And finally, Math using crochet and knitting. There’s a lot of discussion about elementary students who struggle with basic math concepts. There are very few truly imaginative solutions for how to engage these kids. The afghans knit by now-retired British math teachers Pat Ashforth and Steve Plummer, and the curricula [PDF] they developed around them over several decades, are a significant exception. Even for the “simple” function of multiplication, they found that making a large, knitted chart using colors rather than numerals could help certain students instantaneously visualize ideas that had previously eluded them. “It also provokes discussion about how particular patterns arise, why some columns are more colorful than others, and how this can lead to the study of prime numbers,” they wrote. Students who considered themselves to be hopeless at math discovered that they were anything but. And here is our example below.  ToolsBuilding activities are often used in the flipped classroom - a very popular teaching strategy nowadays. In this blog post you have a list of 12 tools that can be used in such an activity. Many of them have tutorials or suggestions for educational use. 

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 - Our activity on the Vitruvian Man, trying to find the Golden Ratio in our own bodies and find out how perfect we are. - Baking Geometry- how about some sweet conic sections? More of Eugenia Chang's Math cooking videos are here. - Rocket Science- Working in teams, students design and build rockets powered by water and pressurized air.  Using what they learn about the fundamentals of force and motion, they build a fully functional rocket including:  payload compartment, propulsion system, recovery system and guidance system.   - Blocks activities for young students.- Designing a perfect parking lot -  And finally, Math using crochet and knitting. There’s a lot of discussion about elementary students who struggle with basic math concepts. There are very few truly imaginative solutions for how to engage these kids. The afghans knit by now-retired British math teachers Pat Ashforth and Steve Plummer, and the curricula [PDF] they developed around them over several decades, are a significant exception. Even for the “simple” function of multiplication, they found that making a large, knitted chart using colors rather than numerals could help certain students instantaneously visualize ideas that had previously eluded them. “It also provokes discussion about how particular patterns arise, why some columns are more colorful than others, and how this can lead to the study of prime numbers,” they wrote. Students who considered themselves to be hopeless at math discovered that they were anything but. And here is our example below.  ToolsBuilding activities are often used in the flipped classroom - a very popular teaching strategy nowadays. In this blog post you have a list of 12 tools that can be used in such an activity. Many of them have tutorials or suggestions for educational use. 

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Grit in psychology is a positive, non-cognitive trait based on an individual's passion for a particular long-term goal or end state, coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective. This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles or challenges that lie within a gritty individual’s path to accomplishment, and serves as a driving force in achievement realization. Commonly associated concepts within the field of psychology include "perseverance", "hardiness", "resilience", "ambition", "need for achievement" and "conscientiousness". (from Wikipedia)

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Grit: The power of passion and perseverance

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Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn’t the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of “grit” as a predicto…

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How does it feel to be bad at Math? Have you ever felt this way? Math makes people feel stupid. It hurts to feel stupid. It’s hard to realize this unless you’ve experienced it firsthand. Here is a tale of mathematical failure. See if it sounds familiar. Can Math be an adventure? Can it be exotic, bizarre, exciting, unpredictable, fun? Read about adventurous Math in this article! How do you spark off an interest in maths when the curriculum seems dreary? It's all about mystery, big stories and journeys to infinity and beyond, says Marcus du Sautoy in this article. Motivating students to be (enthusiastically) receptive is one of the most important aspects of mathematics instruction. Read this article to discover 9 strategies you can use to motivate your students. Allowing learners to struggle will actually help them learn better, according to research on “productive failure” developed in Singapore. Read about the three conditions for a beneficial struggle and useful mistakes here. 

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How does it feel to be bad at Math? Have you ever felt this way? Math makes people feel stupid. It hurts to feel stupid. It’s hard to realize this unless you’ve experienced it firsthand. Here is a tale of mathematical failure. See if it sounds familiar. Can Math be an adventure? Can it be exotic, bizarre, exciting, unpredictable, fun? Read about adventurous Math in this article! How do you spark off an interest in maths when the curriculum seems dreary? It's all about mystery, big stories and journeys to infinity and beyond, says Marcus du Sautoy in this article. Motivating students to be (enthusiastically) receptive is one of the most important aspects of mathematics instruction. Read this article to discover 9 strategies you can use to motivate your students. Allowing learners to struggle will actually help them learn better, according to research on “productive failure” developed in Singapore. Read about the three conditions for a beneficial struggle and useful mistakes here. 

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Motto: "The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement"

Reflection and communication are not only parts but key aspects of hands-on learning, as we strive to facilitate and empower our students'reflective thinking.

In addition to offering materials to touch and explore, teachers can ask open-ended questions that promote problem solving and challenge children’s mathematical thinking and reasoning, as well as help them see things from a broader perspective. Such questions are not meant to elicit correct answers but rather to engage children in open-ended conversations that promote high-level thinking.  One of the foundations of play-based learning is that the teacher is active in the play, asking questions and adding knowledge and insight. The teacher learns together with children throughout the inquiry process. The building and manipulation must be followed by reflection and explanations, in order to help children maintain their focus on a particular topic, refine and expand their ideas, communicate their learning to others, and reflect on their experiences. To support learning, it is important to encourage children to communicate their explorations and findings. Teachers can establish a routine through which children share their experiences at group time.

Even if the outdoors and hands-on activities are so involving and enjoyable, they should include opportunities for reflective thinking. In order to support this, teachers can offer reflection prompts as a way to encourage students to think about what happened, to discuss and think deeply about the purpose and implications of the activity, reinforcing what was learned. Students can be encouraged to analyze the new approaches and compare them to their prefered method, finding new ways to study mathematics.  It is also an opportunity for the educator to understand better what he/she expected students to learn, what they actually learned, and what they still needed to learn. The reflection activities could offer the educator  valuable information to help him/her adapt the class to the students’ needs, have a more dynamic approach to teaching in order to align better with students’ individual and collective needs, rather than adopt a “one size fits most” approach. The reflection prompts can ask students to take about 15 minutes to discuss in their groups and then respond in writing (on the worksheet) to  a few simple questions such as: 1. Describe several things that you learned from this activity? 2. How could you apply what you learned in your current class work?

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If you need more inspiration, here are some places you could find more ideas:

- Discovering the Art of Mathematics: 11 inquiry-based books freely available for classroom use. These texts can be used as semester-long content for themed courses (e.g. geometry, music and dance, the infinite, games and puzzles), or individual chapters can be used as modules to experiment with inquiry-based learning and to help supplement typical topics with classroom tested, inquiry based approaches (e.g. rules for exponents, large numbers, proof). Also, take a look at the document below.

- A whole blog of Math activities- here is the videos section

- Our project's Twinspace page for the bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence

- Kids STEM activities A-Z series (not just Math but also Science experiments for preschool to elementary school students)

- Math-on-a- Stick: more ideas for Math activities at early ages

- Another interesting collection of activities to browse

- And of course, we could not end this without some Christmas activities!