Thinking Creatively in maths!

06/04/2011

So, yesterday at my Tuesday school I ran a maths lesson, and I didn’t feel it went very well.
On the bright side, I get to teach the same lesson to a different group next week. So, I spent some time today working on the lesson plan, trying to make it work better.


The lesson is about figuring out strategies for predicting patterns. The first time I taught it, I tried to guide the kids step by step through each strategy, eliciting ideas from them, but supporting them through each one. At the end, I didn’t feel that any of the kids had actually learned anything. Mainly, I didn’t feel that any of them built any solid links.

Next time, I am going to let them spread their creative wings a bit more, and come up with their strategies in groups without my help, and then get them to explain it to the whole group.

I’ll do a diagnostic first, to help me figure out the groups. I want to put anyone who is really far ahead into their own group to make sure that they will be challenged. And then I want to mix up the other groups so that the lower level kids are being guided by the slightly higher level kids.

This is, of course, what Peter has been talking about in our Maths class, so it will be interesting to try it out. But what I’m especially stoked with is how this lesson fits in with so many of the ideas about creativity I expressed in my last blog post.

Children will use creative thinking in this task:
• To find solutions (strategies to predict patterns)
• To approach an unfamiliar problem and find ways to solve it
• Access ideas that they have not experienced (? Maybe they will come up with the idea of using multiples)
• Understand that there are many perspectives from which to approach an idea or problem (ideas will be shared)
• Judge which idea is the most effective (after the initial group work, students will be asked to choose a strategy and solve the next problem)
This lesson also taps into the ‘genex’ theory of creative thinking:
Collect: We will practice skip counting, times tables and counting on before hand. We must also have our background knowledge well established – e.g. ordinal nature of numbers, how to skip count etc.
Relate: Strategies will be devised alongside peers
Create: Solutions will be recorded
Donate: Ideas will be shared with the group, for them to judge and use.
Of course, the lesson is also in line with co-constructivist thought.
I’m now really excited to see if this works. If it does, I will look at maths in a whole new light!
(The full lesson is attached for you to download if you wish)

Plan for 120411.docx
Large number chart.docx
Sheet 1 advanced.docx
Sheet 2 standard.docx