Math PD #2

Second part of Math PD today (it's amazing what exhausted teachers can do after the poppets go home!).


They really pack it into these courses but without fail you come away wanting a new piece of maths equipment that you now know how to use in a deeper way - this time - laminated 40 by 30 arrays.

We even did a reading - well a page of a reading.

Jenny Young-Loveridge and Judith Mills (Chapter 3) Multiplicative Thinking: Representing Multidigit Multiplication problems using arrays

Main thing from this page was that building student's conceptual understanding takes time and effort and that teaching an algorithm  as a method for student's to fall back on is folly.
There is now research evidence to show that an emphasis on procedural knowledge and rules undermines conceptual understanding ( and hence the deeper application of knowledge to solve increasingly complex problems). My interpretation is that this also would apply to the rote learning of tables.

We again filled out the sheet naming the numeracy stages and their corresponding levels and definitions of content at each. This is ALWAYS enlightening and as much as I think I know I still struggle (although I did notice much improvement!).  Many people still shocked to note that stages 1 - 4 are all level one.

Problem of the night
Annie has 9 boxes of apples. Each box holds 59 apples. How many apples are there altogether?

MY first strategy was multistage...
9 X 59 = 9 x 60 - 9
((60 x 10) - 60) - 9
600 - 60 - 9
540 - 9 = 531

By the end of the session I solved this with a drawn array...much more efficiently!





Here is my summing up to course doodle...