Math-Epol338 Course Notes - Mathematics Curriculum Study

EPOL338 Course Notes
Online Collaboration Team

for VUW Diploma of Education
Edited by Blair M. Smith
July 18, 2010

1
c 2010, Blair M. Smith

Copyright
Please copy, modify and redistribute under the terms of the GNU Free Document
Licence (GPL FDL) here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3-standalone.html
Contents
Preface 6
Introduction and Warm-up Activities 7

Reflections on School Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Calculations in Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1 Module 1—An Introduction to Mathematics Teaching 13

Thoughts on the Way Mathematics Could be Taught . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Interviews with Adults—Thoughts on School Mathematics . . . . . . . . . 14
Task 1.1—Attributes of a Quality Mathematics Programme . . . . . . . . 14
Task 1.2.1: Curriculum Achievement Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Task 1.2.2: Frog Hopping Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Mathematical Facts and Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Glossary of Some Terms Used in school Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Resources and Tools Familiarization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
NCEA Achievement Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Problem Solving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2 Module 2—Introduction to Mathematics Lesson Planning 32

Module 2.1—Planning for Mathematics Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Comments on “Developing Mathematics Understanding” . . . . . . . 32
2
CONTENTS 3
Comments on “Designing Rich Mathematical Experiences” . . . . . . 33

Comments on “Planning to Teach a Mathematics Lesson” . . . . . . 36
A Checklist Mathematics for Lesson Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Module 2.3—Exploring Mathematics Teaching Resources . . . . . . . . . . 40
Comments on “Using Assessment for Effective Learning” . . . . . . . 40
3 Module 3—The Numeracy Development Project 42

Module 3.1—Overview of the Numeracy Development Project . . . . . . . 42
4 Module 4—Number and Algebra 43

Module 4.1—Teaching Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.0.1 Tips for Teaching Number & Algebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Dealing with Misconceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Module 4.2—Algebra and Generalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Mathematics Needs for ESOL Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5 Module 5–1 Algebra 53

Teaching Algebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Teaching Algebra53
Charting Algebra in the NZ Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Common Student Difficulties with Algebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Teaching Strategies for Helping Students with Algebra . . . . . . . . 57
Helping Students with Algebra Word Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Forum Reflections of Teaching Algebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Variation and Invariance in Mathematics Pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Spreadsheets in Mathematics Pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Visual Proofs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Some Tips for Mathemagics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
CONTENTS 4
Using Technology to Teach Algebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

GeoGebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
CLUCalc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
A Final Word on Teaching Arithmetic & Algebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6 Pedagogical Content Knowledge Study—Complex Numbers 72

6.1 Ideas for Teaching Complex Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.1.1 C Possible Teaching Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
C Possible Teaching Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.1.2 Dealing with C Misconceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Dealing with C Misconceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
6.2 Some Tools for Teaching Complex Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
6.2.1 Resource of Good C Inquiry Projects and Questions . . . . . . 75
Resource of Good C Inquiry Projects and Questions . . . . . . . . . . 75
6.2.2 Advanced Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Advanced Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Reflection Journal 81
Reflections for Week One of Epol-338 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Reflection on Features of a Quality Mathematics Programme . . . . . 81
Reflections on School Mathematics Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Reflections on Week 1 Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Why do we teach mathematics? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Why do we need to teach “numeracy”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Module 1 Reflection—Mathematics Then and Now . . . . . . . . . . 91
Reflections for Week Two of Epol-338 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
The Art of Starter Activities and Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Interpretation of “Teaching Areas of Triangles” . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
CONTENTS 5

6.2.3 Reflections on Polya’s ‘How to Solve It’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Reflections on Formative Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Reflections on My Personal Teaching Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Preface
These are free collaborative collective course note for the 2010 online students en-
rolled in the VUW Epol338 course. Please copy and redistribute as you please,
respecting the GPL-FDL copyright.
We have included a lot of quotes from the online discussion forums, which has
added to the length of this book somewhat. The suggestion is to not read this book
serially, but to instead scan the topics and delve into the quoted paragraphs as your
interest guides you—that way the book will hopefully not seem too daunting to
read. Also, these course notes are not intended as substitutes for the course Module
notes, textbook and readings. The idea is that this book will serve as a reference
and memory jog for all of our future work in education, and not so much as an exam
preparation guide for the course.
6
Introduction and Warm-up
Activities
views of the editor. Other sections are collaborative. Margin symbols like
used to highlight what I think are essential tips for good teaching.
U
The portions of these notes written in the first person voice can be considered the
are
Reflections on School Mathematics
Below under each question are my answers, followed by those of two adults whom I
surveyed.
Describe a typical mathematics lesson from secondary school.
My answer. Teacher would turn up a few minutes after the bell. Possibly a quick
review of the previous lesson. An introduction to the next topic, or problems put up
on the board if continuing a topic. Sometimes the teacher asks the class a question
while demonstrating a method or problem model solution or derivation. Students
work basically alone to solve problems but discussion amongst friends at same group
of desks allowed.
Describe a mathematics lesson you have enjoyed.
My answer. Fourth form mathematics teacher discusses knots. We go outside to

test the strength of various slips and knots. Very little theoretical knowledge was
transfered, but the topic was engaging and stimulated interest. The same teacher
taught us how to analyze and solve problems involving logic gates, AND, OR, XOR
and NOT gates. We may have spent a week on this among doing other things.
Again, it was interesting and different from the usual lessons, so we were excited.
7
CONTENTS 8
What were some of the key features of that lesson?
My answer. The aforementioned excitement and novelty of something that did

not seem to appear in any textbooks. It seemed cool in way to be thinking of
doing things that took computers nanoseconds (at that time probably fractions of
microseconds) to accomplish and yet seeing that the mental processes involved were
not entirely all that trivial. No matter how practiced we became there was a limit
to how fast we could solve any given network of gates to work out the signals at
some nodes given sufficient data from others.
Describe a mathematics lesson that you did not enjoyed.
My answer. I vaguely recall a seventh form lesson introducing either summations

of infinite series or proof by induction. I remember thinking, “this will be easy, I
studied this last year,” but the lesson was minimalist, lacked context and did not
draw out my prior knowledge, so I felt lost for a long time and recall trying some
very mechanical seeming thinking and strategy to try and grasp how to do the
example problems. I was scared that the teacher would ask me for a solution, since
I usually knew an answer or how to start one, but this time I did not. After the
lesson I was not sure I could solve similar problems, so I had to go away and teach
myself the skill, after which it became clear and simple. I was bemused by why the
lesson seemed so difficult. That class had a lot of similar bemusing lessons and most
students flunked the course so-to-speak, in fact all but two of us.
Why do secondary school students study mathematics?
My answer. For many reasons. Also, many take mathematics classes and yet do
not really study mathematics!
• Because they have to, when mathematics is not optional, and they desire a
decent grade.
• They love the subject.
• They are good at the subject.
• They need to know a bit of mathematics to do well in other subjects or their

planned future careers.
• They want to impress someone with their mathematical ability.

CONTENTS 9
• Because their friends are studying mathematics.
• Because someone else they like is studying mathematics.
• Because their parents force them to.
• Because they know no better and could not think of other courses they would
like better.
What did you like about mathematics at school?
My answer. It was challenging yet easy to master. Objectives were reasonably

clear and a sense of accomplishment was easy to measure. Many topics were darned
interesting. I knew I needed to be good at mathematics for studying other sciences.
The increasing abstraction of mathematics, it’s structure and patterns and rela-
tionships between various topics and branches of mathematics, was all inherently
fascinating. The less raw numbers became involved the more interesting the lessons
became. It was also great to be thought of as brainy even thought I knew I was
not a genius, merely because I was better at doing mathematics than most other
students. There were few brilliant students who were really of genius level, and I
seemed to get classified along with them as something of a bright spark, just by
association through similar mathematical ability! That was quite fun for a while,
until I was exposed as just an ordinary mind..
What did you dislike about mathematics at school?
My answer. Getting incorrect answers to problems. Making silly mistakes like

losing plus or minus signs, or misreading questions. Also, I hated unclear lessons that
left me wondering what the heck the teacher was teaching. Failing to understand
a proof or technique was horrible. Most of all, I hated the pressure of tests, yet
was strangely exhilarated when the tests turned out to be fairly easy. Facing exams
was a bit like a competition, such as a sprint race. Lots of adrenaline surges, some
anxiety and nerves, followed by relief and exuberance when I felt I had done well.
Calculations in Context
Four questions are given below. The activity is to document the strategy you use
to solve each problem, also try to jot down notes of possible alternative strategies.
No calculators at first.
CONTENTS 10
Sample questions.
1. It is 11:40 am. You have 1 43 more hours of work and then a 25 minute drive
to get home. What time will you get home?
2. The marked price of a shirt is $85. Everything is on sale with a 30% discount.
How much will the shirt cost in sale?
3. Give an estimate of the cost of 320 booklets at $5.70 each.
4. After a meal in a restaurant your group decide to split the bill. What will you
have to pay if you are paying for 3 of the 8 people in the group and the total
bill is $175?
Notes on question 1. Immediately I figure I will have to add 1 43 of time to the

start time of 11:40, and then add another 25 minutes. Breaking this up I first add
one hour to get to 12:40pm (figuring the change from morning to afternoon), then
I add 34 of an hour which I work out (or just know) to be 45 mins (since a full hour
is 60 min) which brings the projected time first to 1:00pm plus the difference of
45 mins less the 20 min to get to 1:00pm, which brings me to 1:25pm. Finally add
the 25 mins drive bringing the overall projected ETA to 1:50pm.
An alternative approach would be to add up the total remaining work+drive time
first, giving 1 43 h +25m or 2 hours plus the difference of 25 min less the 15 min to
get to 2 hours, or 2 hr and 10 min. Then add this to the start time of 11:40am,
which would bring one to 13:40 + 0:10 or 13:50 hr or 1:50pm as before.
A nice graphical method would be to just tick off the time on a clock-face, it
could be a fake clock sketched on paper. This might even be my preferred method
performed with an internal mental clock face perhaps.
30
Notes on question 2. I first recall that 30% of something is a fraction 100 or
3
10
of the thing. Since I’m not confident of doing this in my head straight off by
3
some sort of memorized times table, I need to multiply $85 by 10 . I can do this
in a way to be error-free by multiplying $85 by 3 and then divide the result by 10.
Even simpler I break this down using distributivity as (80 × 3 + 5 × 3)/10 so I get
firstly 3 × 80 or (3 × 8) × 10 using simplest factors of 80 and associativity to get
24 × 10 = 240. Then I still have to add 3 × 5 = 15, to get the intermediate result
240 + 15 = 255 (which I mentally view as the simple sum 40 + 15). Nearly there, I
still have to divide by 10, but that’s a simple shift of decimal place to the left, so
the answer is 25.5 or in monetary units $25.50.
CONTENTS 11
An alternative method might be to divide 85 by 10 first, then multiply by 3. Or

if my head could easily hold multiplication tables for fractions I might do 10 × (8 ×
0.3) + 5 × 0.3, otherwise break it up as 10 × (8 × 3)/10 + 5 × 3/10 which is nice
because I cancel a factor of 10 to get 8 × 3 + 15/10 = 24 + 1.5 = 25.5 as before.
Notes on question 3. For this estimation problem my strategy first off the bat
is to use rounding. One up one down for balance. So taking nearest nice numbers I
figure a good estimate will be 300×$ 6 = (3 × 6) × 100 or $1800. I can also estimate
this should be ‘off’ by only about the twice (2 stdev) the product of the errors from
rounding or 2 ∗ 20 ∗ 0.3 which is about 2 × 7 = 14, or conservatively I expect and
error of between 10 to 20.
I could not think of a more intuitive alternative algebraic method. Rounding 5.7
down to 5 and 320 up to 400 would be acceptable I suppose, and maybe easier on
the mental multiplication times table in my head, for an estimate of $2000.
Notes of question 4. First I say to myself, there are 8 people and the total bill
is $175. So I should divide by 8 to get the cost per person. Then I will just multiply
by 3 to arrive at the amount to pay. I wonder if first multiplying 175 by 3 will give
an easier division, but I discount that for the moment. Whichever way I choose, it is
probably not a division my brain has stored. So for accuracy I need a good division
strategy. I know 2 · 8 = 16, and with a factor of 10 that gets me closest to 175. so
I start with a factor of 20. That leaves 175 − 160 = 15 remainder. 8 goes into this
only once, so I have a dollar amount of 20+1=21 with remainder. The remainder is
now 15 − 8 = 7. I have to go into fractions (cents), so appending a zero I divide 7.0
by 8 (or mentally 70/8) which from memory has 8 · 8 = 64 the closest I can get, so
the running result is now 21.8 with remainder 7.0 − 6.4 which is 0.6. Again I need
another decimal place so appending a zero I think about 60/8 which has 7 as the
closest factor getting me to 56 with 4 remainder, or taking the decimal places into
account this would be 0.7 with remainder 0.4. Now I immediately click and note the
8 × 5=40. No remainder. So I’m home. I add the 5 cents and the total I pay comes
to 21.874 or rounding to $21.90. I still need to multiply by 3. Using strategies noted
above (decimating it up into parts) I will eventually arrive at 65.625 or NZ$65.65
to pay.
The other way, 3 ∗ 175 is not too hard to calculate as 525. But dividing this by
8 is another chore. 8 × 6 = 48 is a good start, with the first chop being 60 with
480 − 525 = 45 remainder. 8 fives are 40 so I get to 65 remainder 5. Then use 8
sixes =48 again to get 65.6 remainder 0.2. Then 8 two’s are 16 to give 65.62 with
remainder 0.04. Then six 8’s are 40 and I’m home with 65.625 an zero remainder.
So on reflection maybe this way of associating the tasks was a bit simpler overall. I
CONTENTS 12
wasn’t to know.
It makes me wonder if multiplication by a rational is more often easier by starting
with the multiplication by the numerator? I doubt this could be general, the division
is always the mentally harder task I think, so the nicer association of operations
depends on the divisor.
1. Module 1—An Introduction to
Mathematics Teaching
Thoughts on the Way Mathematics Could be Taught

If you have never wondered before how mathematics might be ‘best’ taught, a good
read is the article (Begg, 2009) in the Epol-338 course textbook. This chapter is
also available in audio from our course TWiki.
The main idea is that traditional school teaching is about transmitting what we
(as educators) think children should know about mathematics (the usual curriculum
subjects, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, probability and statistics), and
that this view of mathematics education needs challenging, and increasingly has been
challenged and shown to be less than optimal for educating bright and inquisitive
mathematicians.
The new teaching pedagogies championed by Begg and researchers he cites are
the methods of constructivism, discovery learning, rich mathematical experience
and complexity. Most of these methodologies are discussed in the literature and
will be familiar to you from the EPSY courses. The complexity pedagogy might
be the least familiar. In a few words it could be described as an eclectic bunch of
approaches to learning with the common theme of exposing students to the full glory
of mathematics and science, allowing them to learn from their own investigations
and questioning and research. The ‘complexity’ of this approach refers variously
to the deliberate avoidance of over-simplification of topics and the rich veins of
connections that should be (ideally) formed within the minds of students as they
go about their learning. It is an extension and modification of many constructivist
pedagogies.
Begg also writes about the knowing, doing and thinking, skills in mathemat-
ics as being interrelated and not separate skills. The complexity pedagogies are
therefore holistic in nature—they try to avoid teaching mathematics in a way that
13
Module 1—An Introduction to Mathematics Teaching 14
separates sub-topics and disciplines. They even attempt to relate mathematics to

other curriculum subjects like art, history, sport, literature, and so on.
The article becomes truly illuminative when discussing the personal and social
domains of education, asking us to think about what our aims for our students are
in mathematics classes, particularly in these two domains. Do we want students
just to master the subject? Or are we aiming instead to develop the affective and
intrinsic motivations and interest for mathematics in our students? These are not
incompatible goals, but different teachers will place different emphasis on these areas
of education.
In the Reflection Journal section of these course notes some further thoughts
on these questions are given. The focus is on the start of the year and preparing
students for learning.
Interviews with Adults—Thoughts on School Math-

ematics
One female noted that even though their father was an engineer who used a lot
of mathematics, they nevertheless felt uninspired by their parents job. they spoke
of the use of a more self-centred role model. The interviewee spoke about how it
would’ve been useful to be exposed to successful female role models who uses math-
ematics in their careers and who had aspirational careers. So their jobs seemed
interesting. Have them come into class and talk to students and provide mentoring
opportunities. In short, giving students, particularly females, greater aspirational
motivators would have been more inspirational, for this interviewee, than just at-
tempting to make mathematics seem like fun.
Task 1.1—Attributes of a Quality Mathematics Pro-

gramme
The first forum task for this module is to answer the following question.
“What are the features of a quality school mathematics programme?”
Contribute four or five aspects that you would consider important in a quality school
mathematics programme. Examples could include opportunities for practical work
or work set at appropriate levels for different ability groups in the class.
In addition to the suggested two qualities here are some others.
• Involving the students in mathematical tasks that have interesting real world
applications.
• Stimulating student interest in the aesthetic pleasures of mathematics and it’s

intrinsic beauty.
• Providing opportunities for mathematical discovery and original thought.
• Gradually increasing student mathematical literacy to a high level, starting

from basic number skills up to high level abstract algebra and analysis.
• Making sure students get time to be aware of what they are learning when
solving practical problems! That is, always linking practical stuff back to
mathematical abstractions and generalizations.
• Exposing students to the accessible cutting edge of mathematics (this might be

decades old developments, such is the extreme nature of modern mathematics).
• Providing numerous research projects of a suitable level and difficulty for each
student.
• Allowing regular discussion sessions where student ideas and their possible
misconceptions can be aired.
• Achieving all the legal and curriculum aims purely as an incidental side-effect
of having fun and exploring mathematics (with the inevitable struggles and
frustrations that seem only ‘fun’ after the fact).
• Recreate mathematical history—see if students can rediscover already proven

theorems and conjectures. Don’t just teach the historical “facts”. Prime them,
but tell the students about the full history afterwards! (Why should Gauss et
al have had all the fun inventing complex numbers?)
Contributed by Kate:
• New ideas/concepts continue on from prior learning so students can build on

knowledge previously acquired.
• Students are given the opportunity and encouragement to think for themselves.
• Creative thinking is promoted—Students have a chance to adapt and apply

appropriate strategies to solve problems.
• There is continued assessment of knowledge that aligns with curriculum and

learning objectives.
• Learning is connected to students lives and cultures to assist with engagement

and meaningfulness.
Contributed by Rewa:
• Clearly establishing levels of prior knowledge and plan lessons to build on this.
Get to know the students.
• Recognizing and catering to a varying level of abilities and rates of progression.

Setting challenging, realistic learning goals. When possible include students
in this goal setting.
• Establishing relevancy for the learners—why should they learn this or more
importantly why should they want to learn this.
• Allow adequate practice time for internalization of concepts.
• Accessible support and regular, positive feedback time, honest and encouraging
evaluation.
Contributed by Michael:
• Establish the relevance for the learner, i.e., if the learner can see how this is
important they are more likely to try and master the area.
• Give everyday examples that the learner is already familiar with e.g., sale price
less 30%, how much will I save etc.,. . .
• For theories, give the historical significance. What was Pythagoras trying do
when he developed his theory? This may enable the learners to link this with
their own situations.
• Look for practical applications in the learners own lives and use these as ex-
amples in the teaching.
• Where memorization or practice is important, try and make it fun. For ex-
ample, use games that aid in learning; say scoring a game of cribbage (helps
with rapid addition).
Contributed by Dave:
• Recognize what is the knowledge that the students come with (prior knowledge
and what level standard they are really at).
• Differentiate learning to meet individual needs (as students within the same
class have different levels of knowledge).
• Encouraging multicultural interactions in the class when teaching some topics

like for example, area ( ask the student about the area of their country that
they came from),etc.,. . .
• Practical tasks should be included in the program, as many as possible (in-

cluding games) so that the students will have the chance to accomplish these
task in peers or groups and this will encourage the students (a) To interact
with each other more effectively whereas most students feel safe in group en-
vironment to express themselves and be more relaxed to learn from each other
without any embarrassment (specially if there is an EAL learners in the class
); (b) To have their autonomy will make the learning experience enjoyable and
meaningful.
• On going assessment to inform teaching and learning.
• Regular and meaningful feed back to encourage students’ engagement towards

accomplishing required tasks throughout the whole maths program.
• As much as it is possible relate maths teaching to every day situations like dis-
counts, sales, and percentages, to show the students the importance of studying
maths (value) as they will relate maths learning to their life experience.
Task 1.2.1: Curriculum Achievement Objectives

Here are some collected examples from online colleagues. The task recall was to se-
lect an Achievement Objective (AO) from the NZC 2009 Mathematics & Statistics
curriculum, state the chosen Strand and Level, and write a description of a mean-
ingful context and a brief indication of how you would use the context to support
students to understand the concept.
AO, Number and Algebra: Understand operations on fractions, decimals, per-

centages and integers. Number and Algebra Strand, Number strategies and knowl-
edge. Level 5. (Contributed by Rewa.)
• A basic lesson could be centred around the effect of increasing GST from
12.5% to 15%. The lesson could start with news article/s on the subject and a
discussion of how it would effect the students/families. You could also expand
the idea to include the effect on the overall household income and/or the raised
revenue the government will receive.
OR
• Start with a selection of advertising leaflets/newspapers which promote sales

centred around so many percent off, some even give you more % off the more
you buy etc. Make sure to include goods/suppliers of interest to students
within a range of goods/suppliers. An exercise could be to find the “best buy”
(require a bit of devising but could be set to varying levels).
OR
• Another common sales pitch these days is the “no deposit/interest free for so
many months”. Again start with the relevant ads and discuss “what do the
students actually think a purchaser would end up paying under such purchase
agreements”.
The next example is a bit of a stretch for the curriculum. But what the heck,
you only live once.
AO, Statistics: Use simple fractions and percentages to describe probabilities.

Level 3 or 4. (Contributed by Blair.)
• The context is sport. Specifically a game of darts. Some ground rules would
need to be set since it is a dangerous lesson. Alternatively a Velcro dart board
could be used. The student maturity level dictates the safety precautions. The
target should be square and also have a circle inscribed.
• Most students will have a characteristic distribution of scatter for their dart
throws. We want to set up the board so that they will roughly evenly hit a
square area with almost uniform probability. So adjust the target or student-
to-target distance to achieve this. Then they can start having fun throwing
darts. If they miss entirely it doesn’t matter. The more attempts the better.
Awesome!
• Get the students to help each other tally the hits in the square and in the
inscribed circle region. Noting the distribution pattern as well. What can
they then say about the probability of hitting the square versus that of the
circle? What chance is there of hitting the square and missing the circle or
vice versa?
• By Level 5 I reckon the students should be able to reason about the theoretical
probabilities assuming their distributions of scatter were about uniform. It’s
just a ratio of areas. This can be visually checked of course. Some brighter
students might note that the ratio of the hits in the square to those in the
circle aught to be roughly π/4. If not the teacher can guide them towards this
result and then they can check if it is numerically about the same with their
data.
AO, Geometry and Measurement: Level 5. Measurement. Find the perime-

ters and areas of circles and composite shapes and the volumes of prisms including
cylinders. (Contributed by Michael.)
• Background: Students are from a rural area with a low decile rating. The
natural environment features strongly in their recreational lives. They swim
and fish in the local rivers and kaimoana is important to them.
• Proposed Unit Plan
– Duration: 5 lessons
– We will look at what is involved in creating tanks to hold live eels for a
tangi. The holding density will be set at 30 kg of eels per cubic metre of
water. The class will decide on the number of people attending the tangi,
how much eel the average person will eat, the meat recovery from a live
to processed eel (this will be a weekend home work task; they can catch
some eels and weigh them pre and post processing) and from this to how
many eels that will be needed to be caught and held. Using the 30 kg m−3
they will calculate the required tank volume and they will need to think
about area above the water line so the eels don’t jump out of the tanks.
From here they will calculate tank sizes.
– To aid in this work I may have some drawings on the wall of various
shapes and volumes to give them some perspective of volume. Say a
photo of the local swimming pool with water volume, a bath tub, water
storage tank (many come from areas where rain water is collected) etc.
AO, Geometry and Measurement: Level 6. Shape. Use trigonometry ratios

and Pythagoras’ theorem in two and three dimensions. (Contributed by Kate.)
• Lessons for this AO could be based around production depending on the in-
terests and background of the class, for example building a house. Can use
hands on activities and even head outdoors to look at buildings.
• Could start the lesson by questioning what skills and information we need to
say build a roof on a house, moving into ways we could gather the information
and introducing scenarios of what if we don’t have that information available.
• Here we can introduce Pythagoras for the building requirements, for example:
to find how long our piece of wood will need to be for the roof if we only know
two measurements.
• Then in subsequent lessons advance to trigonometry when the class is ready,

using what if we only know ‘this’ information and draw up several examples
sticking to the theme of building a house and eve just focusing on the roof.
This theme could be used for many other AO within this classroom.
Task 1.2.2: Frog Hopping Problem

Here is one “think aloud” exposition of the frog problem.
“If we ignore the sliding, then the minimum number of leaps required
can be deduced by sequentially shifting frogs by sequential hops. With-
out too much effort it is clear that if the number of, say green, frogs on
the left is n and the number of, say red, frogs on the right is n, then each
of the n red frogs must be hopped over all m green frogs, which requires
n · m jumps. To check you can imagine instead jumping the green frogs,
you’d expect the answer to be the same: which is just jumping all m
green frogs over all n red frogs, and the answer is still m · n = n · m,
as expected. Now including the sliding moves. To jump a red frog to
the right over a green frog we need one slide at first to put a green frog
immediately adjacent to the nearest red frog. This slide is repeated for
the remaining m − 1 green frogs to shift the leftmost red frog to the left
of all the green frogs. So that is a total of m slide moves for the first
red frog. Then it is apparent that all the frogs will be bunched with no
gaps between them, so to make a space for the next jump+slide sequence
we have to slide all n − 2 red frogs on the right, then we can jump the
rightmost green frog over the 2nd red frog. Then we are in the same
pattern as before but with just n − 1 red frogs to move.
“But at this point we have another option, we could move the first
red frog to the left and then move m − 1 green frogs leftwards to make
a gap for the 2nd red frog to jump the mth green frog. At this point I
start to worry about other strategies that might be more efficient.
“Then I realize that there should be extra restrictions that were not
mentioned in the Module 1.1 notes, but are given in Frankcom’s article.
The red frogs can only move leftwards and the green frogs can only move
rightwards. A somewhat artificial constraint, but it makes solving the
problem clearer, there are fewer strategies now. The critical insight is
that we must avoid a pattern whereby two or more green frogs block two
or more red frog on the red’s left, and similarly we get stuck if two or
more red frogs are blocking two or more green frog to the green’s right.
In either of these configurations there is no move to remove the blockage.
The solution proceeds more or less uniquely.
“This is very interesting! adding the proper constraints has led me
to the solution that is optimal, because now I realize that the critical
thing for a minimal move solution is to achieve a final configuration that
has all frogs minimally displaced from their original posiitons. So the
minimal move solution would have initial configuration,
1 2 . . . m m + 1 m + 2 . . . n + m (slot numbers)
g1 g2 . . . gm r1 . . . rn initial positions
and a final configuration,
t 1 2 . . . n − 1 n n + 1 n + 2 n + 3 . . . n + m (slot numbers)
r1 r2 . . . rn g1 g2 g3 . . . gm final positions.
Assuming m ≥ n, we can say that we cannot possibly complete the

rearrangement in less than
n(m + 1) moves for the reds
and
n moves for the frog g1
and
(m − 1)n moves for the frogs g2 . . . gm .
Noting that there are mn jumps which move 2 positions at a time, we
need to subtract mn/2 from each of these two tallies, making,
mn mn
n(m + 1) − = + n moves for the reds
2 2
and
mn mn
n + mn − n + m − = + m moves for the greens
2 2
and so the lower bound on the minimum number of moves is,

mn mn
Nmin ≥ +n+ + m = mn + m + n.
2 2
“So if we can find a specific strategy that yields this number of moves
then we have the solution, otherwise we have to keep looking.”
“After some playing around and trial and error I realized there is
indeed an algorithm guaranteed to achieve this minimal move solution,
it goes as follows (there is more than one way to describe it):
1. Move gm left.
2. Jump as many red to the left as possible (first time you can only
jump one, r1 ), without doubling up any adjacent red frogs. Keep
the position marked at the last place you move to, call this p.
3. Slide one r frog left or slide the next g frog right if there is no r
frog on the right of the current place, p to move left.
4. Jump as many g frogs to the right as possible without doubling up
any g frogs. Note the new position p.
5. Slide one g right or slide the next r frog left if there is no green
frog to the left of p.
6. Repeat from step 2 until all red frogs are on the left of all the green
frogs.
7. The final move is just to slide the g1 frog into position n + 2 to get
all of them adjacent.
“An alternative way of describing the same algorithm implicitly is to
say: start with any valid move, proceed by jumping and moving without
allowing two or more of the same colour frogs to become adjacent unless
(a) they are already adjacent, or (b) the new adjacent block has no
opposite coloured frogs in ‘front’ of them (as defined by their colour’s
uni-direction of motion). Do not make any move that puts a frog beyond
the positions 1 to n + m + 1, that is, use the constraint that there are
only m + n + 1 boxes or spaces.
“It should be clear, after experimenting a bit, that this description
gives a unique solution, the same as the formal solution, which is what
I call the 1D Chinese checkers solution, because it proceeds by creating
spaces between like coloured frogs allowing the other colours to hop along
a chain. I was quite amazed that the enforcing the constraint actually
led me to the general minimal move solution. Without it I was starting
down the wrong algorithm road. After realizing the constraints suddenly
the optimal solution was clear, with or without the constraint.”
Variation—Backwards shifts are allowed, final configuration unimpor-

tant. What if we allow backwards slides and jumps? Probably that won’t help
narrow down the minimal moves since going backwards costs extra moves. But what
if we also don’t stipulate that the final frogs need to be adjacent? We also allow
‘boxes’ to be positioned to hold frogs to the left and right of the initial places.
Paradoxically this freedom initially confounded me. I first had a strategy that
was less efficient (in terms of total number of moves required) than the more con-
strained problem when m and n are not both in the set {1, 2, 3}. However, for these
lower values of n and m my strategy was quicker than the no-‘backwards moves’
constrained solution but only when either n or m was =1.
The challenge of worrying about multiple ways of accomplishing the end goal is
intrinsically intriguing, so that is a good attribute to have for a class activity. There
are now infinitely many ways to move the frogs, most of which are total lunacy,
but at least two broad strategies seem apparent. One is to use loose sequences of
shift+jumps to move the red frogs past the green frogs using slide moves for the
fewer red frogs and jump moves for the green frogs. The second broad strategy is
to think more about spacing the frogs out so that jumps can be coordinated like a
game of Chinese checkers. Intuitively the first ‘Loose’ strategy seems to be likely to
be more efficient—but except for small n and m cases it isn’t, as we will show below.
Maybe there is a variation or combination of the two strategies that is optimal for
all n and m?
Here’s the Loose strategy illustrated with m = 3 and n = 2. green frogs labelled
g1 , g2 , g3 , red frogs r1 , r2 Minimum number of moves is 11. To emphasise the
asymmetry the extra initially empty slot on the RHS is shown from the start.
g1 g2 g3 r1 r2 initial state
g1 g2 g3 r1 r2 slide ←
g1 g2 r1 g 3 r2 jump
g1 g 2 r1 g 3 r2 slide
g1 r1 g2 g 3 r2 jump
g1 r1 g2 g 3 r2 slide
r1 g 1 g2 g 3 r2 jump
r1 g 1 g2 r2 g3 jump
r1 g 1 g2 r2 g3 slide
r1 g 1 r2 g 2 g3 jump
r1 g 1 r2 g2 g3 slide
r1 r2 g1 g2 g3 jump, and finish.
Clearly this is less efficient than the Chinese checkers strategy when n and m are
reasonably large, in fact merely greater than 2.
Another cute thing about the problem is that the tight strategy is asymmetric.
If we have m > n then it is almost always quicker to work by jumping the m green
frogs over the sliding red frogs, provided neither m nor n is =1. If n or m equals
1 and the other number is less than 4 (i.e., say m = 1 and n ∈ {1, 2, 3} then it
turns out to be optimal to slide the frogs of greater number, that is slide the red
frogs if m < n and jump the green frogs, and vice versa if m > n. If either n or m
is greater than 3 then it is always optimal, using this strategy, to slide the frogs of
fewer number and jump the frogs of greater number. The general formula for the
number of moves can be derived for this strategy,
N = 2 + 2n(m − 2) + n(n + 3)/2
Plotting N versus the pairs (m, n) will then reveal the asymmetry. This constructive
argument does not prove that it results in the minimum number of moves.
Recall that the optimum for the highly constrained leap frog problem, where the
final configuration has to have all red frogs adjacent with one gap then all the green
frogs adjacent was,
mn mn
Nmin ≥ +n+ + m = mn + m + n.
2 2
We can get the best result using this Chinese checkers strategy for the unconstrained
problem by simply subtracting the last move (the move the puts the frog g1 adjacent
to it’s neighbour g2 ), so,
′
Nmin = mn + m + n − 1
N ′ indicating this is the number of moves for satisfying the new unordered arrange-
ment problem. The question is, is their a faster strategy? I could not find a better
method when n and m are not both in {1, 2, 3} with one of them equal to 1. For all
other cases I looked at it seemed evident, and logical, that I could not do any better
than the Chinese checkers solution. indeed, there are only two edge cases where a
faster asymmetric strategy exists, these are (m = 2, n = 1) and (m = 1, n = 3).
The difference is just one move.
Why does this asymmetric strategy work better for these two edge cases? The
gist of it is in that just for these two special cases one can use the extra jump to
get a frog moved two places in one move. The Chinese checkers solution algorithm
ignores this possibility because of it’s constraint to the original place holdings.
Here’s the illustration that we can do one move fewer for these two cases. First
(m = 2, n = 1)
g1 g2 r1 initial state
g1 g2 r1
g 1 r1 g2
r1 g 1 g2 finish, in 3 moves,
whereas Chinese checkers uses 4 moves for this case. And for (m = 1, n = 3) Chinese
checkers uses 6 moves for this case, compared to
g1 r1 r2 r3 initial state
g 1 r1 r2 r3
g 1 r1 r2 r3
r1 g 1 r2 r3
r1 r2 g 1 r3
r1 r2 r3 g1 finish, in 5 moves.
After all this work we still have no exact proof of the optimal strategy for the
general unconstrained box position variation of leap frogs. The constrained Chinese
checkers solution must surely be near optimal, even with it’s constraint on the final
adjacency—we know this simply because by design it results in minimal unidirec-
tional shifts of frogs away from their initial positions. But I cannot be 100% sure
if it is truly optimal for the more general unconstrained conditions. We know the
‘Loose’ strategy is sub-optimal, but for (m = 1, n = 2) and (m = 1, n = 3) it is
optimal, which is simply proven by brute force enumeration of all possibilities. At
this stage time constraints meant I had to put aside these investigations, but this
should at least provide a lot of food for thought when preparing this lesson activity
for high school classes.
Variation—Cost incurred by jumping then find lowest cost solution. Sup-

pose the frogs have to collectively achieve their end with minimum energy expendi-
ture, and sliding takes half as much energy to perform as jumping. What then is
the best solution? It may involve more slides and a total greater number of moves,
but we know that there must still be at least mn jumps, that is unavoidable! So the
Chinese checkers solution with the no-backwards move constraint is probably still
the best for most m and n not both in the smaller set {1, 2, 3}.
Further reflections on this problem are noted in the Journal section page 88.
Mathematical Facts and Ideas

[Editor.] This (Neyland, 2009), the third reading for Module 1.2, was interesting
albeit a bit nutty. I like nutty mathematics. First the weird stuff. I thought the
whole discussion by Neyland on the theme of mathematics as only existing when
humans invent it is just wrong. So this is a philosophical difference of opinion, and
one that cannot be resolved since it depends upon personal belief, and the nature
of mathematical ontology is not a decidable thing. Consider Neyland’s discussion

of 1+1=2:
“The ideas behind so-called facts can often be revealed by inquiring

about their origins in time.. . . When did one plus one first equal two?
Was this true when the dinosaurs were roaming the Earth, long before
humans existed?. . . the answer to the last question, according to some
mathematicians such as Hersch, is no.
“. . . So the statement ‘One brontosaurus and another brontosaurus
make two brontosauruses’ is not a statement about numbers; it is a
statement about brontosauruses.
“. . . The noun two is abstracted from the multitude of pairs of real
physical objects encountered in human experience. . . . The critical point
is that it took human beings to abstract two-ness from these pairs. So
‘One and one make two’ is a statement that does not predate human
kind. It is time dependent.”
OK, so the problem is that Neyland takes a materialist philosophical stand. But
that is a prejudice. He gets into linguistic analysis over a matter of no importance—
whether 1+1=2 is a fact or an idea. You can take it either as an axiom or prove
it from other axioms, that’s all there is in mathematics. So the whole idea versus
fact dilemma is really irrelevant, unless it is something we need to disabuse our
students of—in which case it is an interesting debate, but we do not need the social
constructivist philosophical point of view to correct students. We only need a good
understanding of mathematical consistency, logic and axiomatic schema.
Moreover, how do we know some alien civilization on another planet did not come
up with this statement millions of years before humans. So Neyland’s view of the
idea of ‘1+1=2’ is not only time-dependent, it is place and contingency dependent.
That’s a poor foundation for mathematics IMHO.
An alternative view is that humans discover mathematical ideas. Mathematical
ideas are physically pre-existent because they do not depend upon anything physical.
If there was a sentient mind before humans, or even before what we know of as
the physical universe, then it is at least logically possible that that mind or minds
may have formulated mathematics. There may be other inequivalent consistent
and incomplete formal systems like Zermelo-Frankel set theory or Peano arithmetic,
but there nothing physically dependent about these formal systems. Humans bring
these formal systems to life in physical representation (in textbooks, our neural
excitation patterns, scribbles in sand, television programmes, computer codes, and
so forth). So the physical manifestations of these eternal ideas is time-dependent,
naturally. That does not mean the consistent ideas themselves are time-dependent.
This contrary view to Neyland’s (called neo-Platonism, if you need a name for it)
also does not place mathematical ideas on the pedestal of ‘facts’, they are still ideas.
In isolation they have no meaning, but in relation to other ideas they form consistent
tautologies, which are also not facts. If they are not consistent then they are by
definition not part of the same mathematical system. So there is something there
for people like Neyland, who seem to think mathematics is socially constructed, to
hold onto. If they don’t want facts then they don’t need to have them.
Also, as an aside, humans have no way of proving that physically represented
mathematics, at least as powerful as Peano arithmetic, is consistent. We do however
have a notion of what consistency means, namely that it should not be possible to
formally prove a statement and it’s contradiction. This notion is a necessary defining
feature of any mathematical system.
A last point on the philosophy before moving on. Neyland seems to think that
Pierpont came to an appalling yet inescapable conclusion that mathematics must
by defined by logic and consistency, in other words by the arithmetic rather than
by the ideas of humans. I find this to be a false dichotomy. Mathematics is still an
art. It is also a logical science based on consistency and axiomatic method. What’s
the problem here? Humans do mathematics using creativity and artful play. The
result is, at best, a physical and mental representation of logical consistency. There
is no dilemma here for Pierpont to worry about. Mathematics is a humanist activity
(except for when it is not practised by humans). The result is that mathematicians
(human or otherwise) discover Platonic truths, if they are lucky, and they may even
discover, as we have, that they cannot know the absolute truth about all theorems
of mathematics. There’s the link between the beauty and aesthetics of mathematics
and it’s cold hard ‘arithmeticization’. I do not understand why this worries Pierpont
an Neyland, or why it is seen as appalling. Perhaps I do not understand their
argument.
Most modern mathematicians probably side with Neyland’s view, if they have
a strong view on these philosophical things. So I’m just putting up an alternative
perspective for the readers interest, which I might add, is a view I share with any
brilliant mathematical logicians, Gödel included1 .
Anyway, this is a philosophical difference of opinion and is not all that relevant
to pedagogy, so with all this said lets look at the positive things in Neyland’s article.
It really is a good article!
Probably the main thing to take away from this reading is that it is pretty
destructive to present students with mathematical ideas as if they were facts cast
1
The late William Hatcher is another. I had the pleasure of conversing with Hatcher on a few
occasions before he died.
in stone. A simple way to avoid this is to construct some toy formal systems for
the students to play with (see Hofstadter, 1979, for some examples). Then guide
them towards the realization that some statements can be treated like facts, and we
call them axioms, but that there is still nothing eternally ‘true’ about them. They
simply define the mathematical system that we are dealing with. This should prime
students with the important sensibility of having a questioning and curious attitude
towards mathematical knowledge.
[EDITOR: comments are welcome. Please add any.]
Glossary of Some Terms Used in school Mathemat-

ics
High school mathematics covers very broad range of topics. So it is not surprising
if many professional mathematicians are unfamiliar with at least one or two terms
used in school classes. Here is a short list of some of the more unusual terms, plus
a few familiar terms that one might forget about from time to time.
Addend any one of a set of numbers to be added.
Assignable causes (of variability) causes of variability in data collected over

time—which could not have been predicted ahead of time. Hence, usually
associated with an abrupt change or drift in a process.
Clinometer instrument for measuring vertical angles. [OK, but I still do not know
what this looks like?]
Concurrent lines lines that all pass through one common point.
Congruent geometric objects have the same size and shape, indicated by the rela-
tion symbol ∼
=.
Decomposition a method for subtraction whereby the larger numbers are rewrit-
ten as a sum to simplify the mental process of subtraction: e.g., 74 − 28 =
(60 + 14) − (20 + 8).
Dividend in 12 ÷ 3 = 4, the number 12 is the dividend (the number being divided

up)
Dot plot represents tallies as dots on a scale.

Euler’s relation V + F − E = 2, where V = number of vertices (nodes, F =

number of faces, and E = number of edges of a polyhedron or network.
Figurate numbers numbers that can be represented by dots arranged in a figure
(on a grid?)
Function a set of ordered pairs where the first element of each pair occurs only
once in the entire function list, e.g, {(a, 3), (b, 2), (c, 3), (d, 9)}, all letters are
different numbers.
Golden section the ratio a/b with the property a/b = (a + b)/a.
Hectare 10, 000 m3
Icosahedron polygon with 20 faces.
Kite quadrilateral with two pairs of congruent adjacent sides.
Strip graph Represents frequencies as a proportion of a rectangular strip.
I added the Māori kupu terms to my computer’s Māori-English translator.

[TODO: add a few more terms in the L to Z range.]
Resources and Tools Familiarization
NCEA Achievement Standards
Assume you have browsed these, starting a search here http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/-

ncea/index.html. No need to comment on them here.
Problem Solving
Have a look at sample activities here: http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/node/449. Choose

one and work through it, then act out teaching it with a class. Note any difficulties
or interesting thoughts that occur during or after doing this little exercise. Below
are three samples.
Hinea’s Watch Hands Problem. How many times in a day do the hour and
minute hands of an analog watch coincide? http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/resource/-
hineas-watchs-hands
Comments: This is a nice little problem. The intuitive answer is 24, since the
miniute hand sweep out 24 revolutions in a day. When solved algrbraically, using
say the relative speed of the hands, i.e., θm = 12θh and solving thetah − θm = n2π,
we get θh = n2π/11 with solutions limited to the range θh ∈ (0, 4π). This formally
has 23 solutions not including 23:59:60. Why not 24? Because the n =24th solution
has θh = [24π/11]mod2π ≈ 6.854 > 2π, so at this time the day has past, and we are
into the next day. But if we also exclude 00:00:00 (i.e., excluding n = 0), then we
get only 22 solutions!
I would force the algebraic approach by asking students to find the exact hh:mm:ss
at which, say the fifth, coincidence occurs. The guiding questions suggested in the
lesson plan are I think necessary, most Level 5 students will probably not be able to
figure out the algebraic approach without guidance. But I would give them plenty
of time to ponder and struggle with it and jog them to get to it. After a bit of
playing around with actual analogue clock faces I would get the students to obtain
some numbers and maybe look for patterns if they cannot immediately jump to the
abstract algebraic formulation.
* * *
Hinea’s Other Watch Problem. How many times in a day do the hour and
minute hands become perpendicular?
Comments: This is a nice follow-up because it uses the same principles, and hence
both tests and cements previous understanding, as well as having the ‘surprise’ of
a completely different numerical answer. Here we have θh = (2n + 1)π/2, with
constraint 0 ≤ θh ≤ 4π as before. It’s gentle also, because the surprise is not too
shocking, and most students will see why in short time.
* * *
Lara’s Equiprobable Dice. This was not a closed problem but rather a series of
similar problems. http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/resource/probability-trees. We don’t
need to copy it here, it is quite a long plan. After following the suggested exercise
to act out teaching this activity I had the following comments.
Comments: Combinatorics was and is one of my weaknesses in mathematics. It
always takes me longer than I expect to get solutions ‘out’ and accurate. assuming
my students may be similarly challenged (at least some of them) the use of combi-
natorics in probability theory is probably a very worthy classroom exercise. This
problem set is a nice introduction, and there is opportunity for gifted students to
derive the formulae for permutations and combinations that arise. At this stage I
cannot be sure what year or level of class such activities would be most suitable,
but there is probably something here to be gained for any secondary school level.
2. Module 2—Introduction to
Mathematics Lesson Planning
Module 2.1, 2.2—Planning for Mathematics Teach-

ing
Four readings, (Goos, Stillman, & Vale, 2007; Neyland, 1994; Chambers, 2008;
Goulding, 2004) and a Journal Reflection task.
Comments on “Developing Mathematics Understanding”
The reading is (Goos et al., 2007). While not tremendously informative, I enjoyed
this article. Some highlights:
• Student responses to question: how do you know when you understand some-
thing in mathematics?
Not surprisingly the most frequent answer was “when I can do the exercises and
get the correct answer”. What we’d prefer to see in students and in ourselves)
is the response, “I know I understand when I can explain it to others”.
So why do we not try to breed this metacognitive understanding? This ap-
preciation that true understanding is deep and is not just being able to apply
technique, but the highest test is to be able to explain it and teach it to others.
So mathematics, or any school subject, teachers should try to inculcate this
belief and appreciation in students and in their approach to teaching. Group
activities are great for this, both for figuring out one does not really understand
a subject and for practising explaining things to colleagues.
• The Pirie-Kieren levels of understanding. While a bit academic they are per-
haps useful to keep in mind as levels of understanding that we look for in
32
Module 2—Introduction to Mathematics Lesson Planning 33
students progress. They are,
1. Primitive knowing.
2. Image making.
3. Image mental construction (having an image).
4. Property noticing.
5. Formalising.
6. Observing.
7. Structuring.
8. Inventising.
• The ‘solving a simultaneous equation’ anecdote. This was cute and probably
familiar to many teachers and tutors.
The lesson for us is what it implies for improving teaching—do not be prescrip-
tive, or you risk students copying your demonstrations verbatim, and missing
the fluidity of mathematics. Better to teach simultaneous equations with a
few solved examples (concrete experience) but before letting students loose on
problem solving give them the deep understanding of what we are really doing
in trying to eliminate variables.
• The differences between the two schools—Phoenix Park (progressive, construc-

tivist oriented) and Amber Hill (traditional, direct instruction).
It’s not surprising but still interesting and valuable to know that the more
progressive school does indeed win on all counts—better deep understanding
and students do better in the standardized exams than the highly coached
school, despite not being ‘taught to the tests’.
Comments on “Designing Rich Mathematical Experiences”
The reading is (Neyland, 1994). This is a terrific article1 , even though it dates
back to 1994. It is quite prescient. The wierd thing is that perhaps Neyland’s
warnings and suggestions have not really been heeded in many schools. One gets
the feeling the problem might be not so much that today’s mathematics teachers
do not appreciate the importance of providing a rich mathematical experience, but
rather that today’s teachers do not quite know how to provide a rich mathematical
1
I may have been a bit rude about Jim’s humanist construction philosophy of mathematics
earlier in these notes, but he redeems himself here in my view [Editor].
experience given the constraints imposed on them by curriculum, NCEA and school
administration.
So what is a ‘rich mathematical experience’ ? Neyland defines it as at a minimum
providing the following ten aspects ,
• Activities that are accessible.
• Allow further challenge and be extensible.
• Invite students to make decisions.
• Involve students in speculation, conjecturing, testing, proving, explaining, re-

flecting and interpreting.
• Should not restrict pupils from searching in non-standard directions.
• Promotes discussion and communication.
• Encourages originality and invention.
• Encourages ‘what if’ and ‘what if not’ questioning.
• Has an element of surprise.
• Is enjoyable.
Not much mention of mathematics and numbers in that list! So it is nice and general
and could be a good list for richness in any teaching subject. Note also the fourth
aspect is really about seven in one.
The art of a good starter. This is another theme in common with all teaching.
Capturing the student’s attention at the start of a lesson is almost a necessity for
a successful lesson. One can recover a lesson without a great starter, and one can
botch a lesson even with a great starter, but it sure helps to start with a big bang.
As with a lot of art, the choice and design of starters for school lessons is partly
obvious and dictated by the subject matter and learning intention but also very
difficult to master and deliver with aplomb. Also, one does not really want to take
up the whole lesson with the starter—unless the entire lesson is built up smoothly
from the starter activity.
Sometimes a lesson plan will be so awesome that it is the starter, core, and end,
all in one.
The intervention–discouragement divide. We have to thank Jim Neyland

for broaching this topic. Most teachers do (I suspect) intervene too early, but then
others who want to promote student self-discovery are probably guilty, if not at risk,
of allowing too much discouragement and de-motivation to develop. My answer is,
Do not feel guilty! So what if a student gets discouraged by lack of suc-

cess? This is what will happen in the mathematical research world. Sure,
it’s important to offer encouragement and advice, especially when asked,
but we can, I think, be highly successful mathematics teachers without
supplying any answers to students for the problems they are assigned to
solve, that is, not until they have made a full attempt.
So have no guilt. But don’t leave students entirely to their own devices. Be true
to your teaching philosophy or change it if you get evidence that it is simply not
working.
The art of asking good intervention questions. Intervening to help students

need not be just giving them the answer or showing them directly a solution to an
analogous problem. Neyland suggests some good question strategies.
• “Can you explain what you were trying to do?”

• “Can you make a guess and test it?”
• “Do you have any questions about what you are doing?”
• “Have you tried another strategy?”
• “Have you tried solving a similar problem, maybe an easier one for starters?”
• “Have you tred breaking the problem down into smaller simpler steps?”
• “Why not try working backwards?”
• “Can you illustrate or sketch the problem out?”
In time, a newbie teacher will acquire the skill to almost automatically ask an
appropriate prompting question, without it being too ‘leading’.
NOTE TO SELF: It’s a good idea to refer back to this article by Neyland for his
nice little examples of paired starter and intervention questionings.
TODO: Make starter and intervention questions part of the detail of all my lesson
plans. Even if they are not used or if they are attached to a separate page of the
lesson plan, have some handy.
Planning for rich mathematical activities. The advice is to do what I just

jotted down! Have good starter and intervention questions on hand, appropriate
for the topic, and designed to laser-like focus student attention on the learning
intentions. Then assess, evaluate and improve the lesson plan afterwards. You can
always make improvements.
Also, do the activity yourself. Rehearse by videoing yourself delivering the lesson
and watch it. Try your best to anticipate all the varied ways a student might be
tempted to think about the problem as you have introduced it in your rehearsal.
Comments on “Planning to Teach a Mathematics Lesson”
The reading is (Chambers, 2008). Some highlights and comments:
• Textbooks are not your lesson plans.

Indeed, textbooks are really for students, not so much for teachers, though
they can be a useful source of interesting problems.
• Elements of good lesson plans. These can be held in the teacher’s mind, but
novice teachers are strongly advised to write it all down for reference.
• I’ve begun a long checklist of elements of a lesson plan that I’ve gleaned are
important. It is currently in my Epsy302 Course Notes and excerpted to the
course TWiki.
Interpreting a plan developed by someone else. The main focus of our study
of this reading is to follow the Module notes instructions: On page 67 of the Cham-
bers’ chapter, there is a lesson plan for finding areas of triangles. Assume that you
were asked to teach the ‘Main Activity’ from 9:15 till 9:50 and that you have the
text book exercises available, try to visualise how you would go about teaching this
section of the lesson. Draw a picture showing what you would record on the white-
board, and how you would organise it. For some of the time you would be working
at the whiteboard. How would you involve students during this presentation time?
The plan states “After 15–20 minutes stop the class and cover an example of a non-
right angled triangle, use prepared resource to demonstrate that the formula used is
the same.” Make a drawing of what you would use for the prepared resource. What
would you say as you demonstrated this idea? Make up 3 or 4 exercises that could
be in EX 10F and Ex 10G. What would you be doing when you were not working
at the board? Act out this part of the lesson—preferably with at least one person
in the role of student.
Assumming we’ve all done this. The thing to do now is write some reflection
journal notes on the exercise. A sample is given in the Journal section of these notes
on page 93.
A Checklist for Mathematics Lesson Plans
I plan to be totally unsatisfied unless all of the following boxes can be ticked for any
final lesson plan I devise [Ed.].
f Lesson topic/name (make it catchy and memorable).
f Why should the students be learning this?
f How should they learn this? Cross check with all the strategy checks.
f Lesson year and level.
f Estimated and preferably the rehearsed time.
f Clear statement of lesson objective—“what should the students learn?”
f Relevance to National curriculum achievement objectives clearly stated.
f Clear statement of lesson intentions—linked nicely to achievement objectives.
f Key words and key concepts.
f Clear statement of success criteria—linked to learning intentions.
f Homework—if necessary (not just a ‘catch-up’)
f Background of relevant student knowledge and context.
f Background of previous lessons of relevance.
f Resources needed—all of: physical, human, and ICT.
f Notes on preparation of resources and any clean-up or follow up afterwards.
f Details for arranging possible additional teacher aids, guests, support staff if
required.
f Extra safety arrangements if needed.
f Seating arrangement needed if necessary.
f Starter activities, if not part of the main lesson.
f Does the starter activity get students immediately thinking?
f Are the starter and plenary activities adequate to check and assess learning?
f Strategy for differentiation, to cater for student diversity.
f Strategy for ensuring safe and supportive learning environment.
f Timed sequence of main proposed teacher and student activities–learning ex-
periences.
f Notes on possible anticipated departures from the timed sequence.
f Is the strategy appropriate for achievement of the learning intentions?
f Does the strategy make good use of student knowledge, suggestions and exam-
ples?
f If you have a group activity, is it well-planned and have you selected a group
structure that suits the lesson?
f Is this going to be an enjoyable lesson, one that you would enjoy?
f Key questions to ask: starters and intervention questions.
f Notes on likely student misconceptions, errors, thinking traps, and plan how
to respond.
f Outlets for potentially disruptive students that will keep them focused in some
way on the learning intentions.
f Lesson closing activity, summary, extension suggestions and review.
f Back-up plan in case a main or critical path component of the lesson fails.
f In general some sort of ‘out’ or escape in case of some unanticipated break
down in the lesson or teacher brain freeze. (This has to be something that will still
lead to valuable learning.)
f Assessment criteria—will you be able to judge whether learning has been
achieved or not?
f Details on how assessment will be performed or recorded.
f Where administration and other notes will be recorded (non-assessment stuff).
f Evaluation goals for reviewing the lesson and improving the plan.
f Have you rehearsed the lesson?
f Have you consulted your reflection journal for tips and reviews, as well as
teacher guides, past exam papers and examiner reports? If not, then re-check this
entire check list after doing so.

f Are your entering and exiting routines clear and consistent with previous stan-
dards for the classroom?
f If there enough time to complete the lesson, or will you need a few short-cuts
and/or extensions up your sleeve?
f Look over the lesson plan again, and ask, “will the students immediately get
a clear vision of where the lesson is coming from and heading towards in the big
picture of the years grand plan and goals?”
f If you haven’t ticked the previous box, is it because this lesson is a special
one-off topic? If not, then re-do the plan and re-check this check list.
Mathematics Specific checks. Some topics in mathematics and sciences com-

pletely fail as lessons if the background knowledge is not understood by students.
This is more of a weakness in mathematics and sciences than in other subjects where
teachers can more easily ad lib.
f Rigorous check on prior understanding required? Plan on what to do if lack of
required understanding is found.
f Prepared questions to use to gauge student understanding.
f Is the warm-up or starter simple enough to draw students in rather than dis-
courage them?
f What will you do for students who clearly struggle with the concepts?
f How are you going to involve students in the development of ideas and conjec-
tures?
f Is your jargon level minimal?
f Have you consulted relevant past examination papers and examiners reports,
and learned from them?
f Have you checked pertinent teacher guides for potential tips and snags?
f Have you worked through the proposed exercises yourself? Note any peculiar-
ities you may like to raise in class.
f What will you do when students are working alone or in small groups?
f Have you checked computer equipment, experimental apparatus, and OHP
machines are all in good working order?
f?
U TIP:Try sometimes using newspaper clippings or other news stories as starters
when available and appropriate.
Module 2.3—Exploring Mathematics Teaching Re-

sources
The tasks for this module were to explore some mathematics resource websites and
to practice dong and grading an NCEA exam paper. I found these activities quite
useful. There are too many websites to review here. I started listing a few on the
course wiki Epol-338 resources.
Comments on “Using Assessment for Effective Learning”
The reading is (Lee, 2001). This short article has real mathematics teaching gems,
but they are useful for general teaching. The main ideas that arose from various
reported problems include,
• Guiding and advising students is more beneficial than marking their work.
• Cooperative work is better than competition.
• Teachers should discuss their methods with each other, and with students.
• Quality is more important than quantity in education.
• Assessment is useless if not analysed and used to improve teaching.
The main solution ideas were,
1. Start lessons often with, “have you got any burning questions?”
2. Ask questions worth thinking about,
• collect answers from all students

• invite comments on insightful answers
• a good answer is thought provoking, not necessarily correct or wrong
• ask groups to devise solutions to complex problems and invite them to

present their work to the whole class.
3. Explore complex questions that last more than one lesson.
4. Get students to research topics and write their own questions.
5. Use problem and misconception focus questions—students mark their own
work on sets of questions designed to reveal misconceptions, then let the
teacher know what they think they need to focus on. De-emphasise marks,
emphasise problem areas and misunderstandings.
6. Use complex homework questions and peer-evaluation using teacher-supplied
fully detailed answer sheets, and tell students to accept solutions that are
convincing and seem to ‘work’ and discuss the differences with the prepared
solutions.
7. Get students to work on complex homework tasks and before sending them
away get them to think about their ‘burning questions’, assign themselves
“how am I going to complete this task?” and go over these in class.
8. Use the last five minutes of a period to have students reflect on and write
down what they have learned (what they know now that they did know know
before).
We can identify two strong themes in all the ideas of this article.
Design lessons to make students reflect, think, and reveal their think-
ing openly to their peers and the teacher. Give pupils a clear voice, freely
and often.
The other theme I thought particularly important, and in agreement with my own
philosophy, was to avoid giving the students simple dull exercises.
Always use complex questions, every lesson, and make them questions
worth asking and answering.
This was a common tactic reported in the article that helped engage students, get
them thinking and maximised the usefulness of the teacher as a guide. Doing lots
of simple drill problems seems less important, even if the school focus is on exam
preparation. Using complex questions, as well as tasking students with more realistic
problems, can easily extend a class over more than one lesson period, which is a good
thing in a way since it allows deeper consolidation of knowledge and skills.
3. Module 3—The Numeracy
Development Project
Module 3.1—Overview of the Numeracy Develop-

ment Project
The reader is referred to the Numeracy Development Project (NDP) Book series
published by the NZ Ministry of Education Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga. To write
anything more about this project here would be entirely redundant. The Numeracy
Development Project is typically useful only for school children below year 9, so it
has less relevance to secondary school. However, the general pedagogical principles
used by the NDP is broadly applicable and useful for teaching at any year level,
provided the content is accordingly adapted. So it is thoroughly worth studying.
There are also a couple of audio lectures recorded from the Numeracy Develop-
ment Project Books available here on our course TWiki.
42
4. Module 4—Number and
Algebra
Module 4.1—Teaching Number

For convenience I have recorded most of this module on audio. See the Epol-338
TWiki.
4.0.1 Tips for Teaching Number & Algebra
The Epol-338 forum asked us to research ideas useful for teaching number and
algebra concepts. Here are some contributions.
Contributed by Blair:
“I quite liked the look of the resource on ”estimating for accuracy”:

http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/resource/estimating-accuracy
“Here are some comments:
“1. It’s a very handy skill to be able to estimate arithmetical operations—
for business, or engineering, science, or virtually any other application
of numbers.
“2. Having a ‘feel’ for the size and likely result of a computation is
a great way to easily spot potential mistakes, especially when the use
of calculators is in play and one can too easily just rely upon button-
pushing. I’ve already seen many students put their trust in a calculator
and get wrong answers by making button push errors, and not even
question their results.
“3. The estimation for accuracy resource can be tailored for use at
many ability levels and for a wide variety of number topics. Even at
advanced levels students can be engaged in estimation problems (e.g.,
43
Module 4—Number and Algebra 44
how may atoms are there in the universe?)”
“The students in the year 9 class that I taught really struggled with
fractions. This was a common thread I found in all my interviews.
“The following game, as a starter, is Easy Fractions Game. Found
at http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/resource/easy-fraction-game
“This is suitable for students at level 4. It can be played as a whole
class starter or used with small learning groups. Nice fun game using dice
and paper. It reinforces value of fractions and the adding of fractions.”
“I like the Shopping for Saving lesson found at http://www.nzmaths.-

co.nz/resource/shopping-savings . This is a lesson designed around com-
paring prices and savings on grocery bills.
“What I like about it is
• relative to real life
• incorporation of fractions, decimals and percentages
• use of stations would allow for differing abilities
• focus on reasonableness of answer
• you can build in your own flexibility re pace of lesson(s), complexity
of work,use of groups or whole class etc
• It would be great to link it to a school camp or similar e.g., family
celebration/hangi”
Module 4.2—Dealing with Misconceptions
My main comment for this section is that misconceptions and errors are great! How
else can we say we are making progress teaching students unless we are correcting
errors? If students are not making errors then they are arguably not being challenged
optimally.
The course readings by Swan (2000) and Tanner & Jones (2000) are excellent
places to start learning about how to deal with student misconceptions. So I have
recorded them on audio for convenience and posted them on my Epol-338 TWiki.
A sweet summary of how to deal with misconceptions might be a simple three
step process as follows. Students with different misconceptions need:
• examples chosen to highlight their errors,
• emphasis on the ideas they do not understand,
• good basic instruction stressing the underlying principles, in common with

everyone else.
Discussion of Misconceptions
The Epol-338 forum asked us to discuss various aspects of handling misconceptions.

Here were some entries:
Contributed by Blair:
“I had a high ability year 9 class on TE, they had a few misconcep-
tions but were generally smart enough to see their own errors relatively
quickly. So here I found it more interesting to look at the reading by
Swan (2000), page 111 of the EPOL338 book of readings.
“The suggested way of dealing with the misconceptions appealed to
me. Namely, to use a discursive approach rather than telling the students
rules for comparing fractions. It makes more sense to me to take the
extra time and effort to allow students to explore fractions and compare
them by converting to decimals or using other means (shading in blocks,
etc). It may take them longer to resolve their cognitive conflicts, but
when they do it the way Swan suggests I would feel more confidant that
a deeper understanding has been gained by the students.
“I guess only some sort of formative assessment could determine this
for sure, but at first blush it seems to me that the discovery approach is
superior in the long term.
“For the percentages misconceptions, I just love strategies like the
one proffered for correcting a sales assistant who suggests a 20% discount
amounts to a 40% discount when selling two items: the remedy is to not
bother correcting the sales-person directly but rather tell them you’ve
changed your mind and would like to buy five items! Awesome!
“It seems to me that when misconceptions arise in a school class there
is always an opportunity to formulate such cognitive conflicts. After all,
once an incorrect answer is given by a student a skilled teacher can
always twist it and use it to create an absurdity. Sometimes this trick
is not warranted if the misconception is a trivial one, but when it seems
like a deep misconception I just love the idea of being able to twist the
students’ wrongness into a blatant nonsense.
“Then of course I like the idea of giving the student time to stew
with the conflicting nonsense. It does take up more class time and many
teachers I suspect would be tempted to just ”give up” and teach by rote.
I find that hard to stomach. Why waste a great learning opportunity
simply for the sake of time?
“Of course, that’s another issue: taking the time to teach when a
school might be overly focused on getting through a curriculum. (That’s
what I found sad about TE.)”
“I had the pleasure of teaching fractions and decimals to my lower

achieving year nines. Inevitably I encountered many misconceptions.
“Previous work in EPOL338 had made me aware that these two
maths areas were a minefield of misconceptions so in preparation I tried
to fit in as much research in this area as possible (along with other sites
I found the decimal web site refered to in our module and the chapter in
our textbook but didn’t find the readings in our book of readings - much
to my disappointment; they would have been a great source of help).
“My associate teacher also gave my some clear steering with regard
to using clear and consistent terminology throughout the lessons.
“For teaching fractions I (with the help of my nine year old and hus-
band) made 11 fraction sets (colourful, laminated circles and fractions),
these were worth all the effort. With some of the class it was actually
seeing the conflict in their reasoning that led to them restructuring it.
“Similarly with decimals I got hubby to make me one LAB—it cer-
tainly demonstrated how it would be a great resource - several students
made comments, as it was demonstrated to them, about how they clicked
that 0.1 was 1/10 and how 1/100 is smaller again. . . etc. Unfortunately
I only had the one in a class of 16+ so the students didn’t get the full
benefit of it.
“BUT the most frustrating thing about teaching these subjects, with
all these existing ’mines’, was the extremely limited time in which I was
given to teach them!”
“During TE 1 I had the same year classes for both Math and Science.
In science we were looking at living things and how they impact on their
environment. To help the students link with their own experiences I
built a pilot scale eel farm in the back of the science lab.
“I used this to help the students in visualization and calculations for

volumes and capacity of cylinders. It also allowed us to work on area of
circles, area of quadrilaterals [circular tanks made from welded plastic
sheets] and area of triangles. The space between tanks.
“One problem that emerged was that students had difficulty in using
the correct unit of measure; cm2 for area or cubic cm for volume. To help
reinforce the ideas I used materials. Stickit type blocks 1cm3 were used
and the students made up various block configerations to cover certain
areas and to fill small cardboard boxes.
“Using materials helps the students to visualize the concept.”
Module 4.3—Algebra and Generalization

For the next forum I wrote about the sieve of Eratosthenes. This is a simple activity
to set up and invites plenty of explorative, discovery and pattern recognition ele-
ments. The cool thing would be to try to get students to articulate or in some other
way explain how the algorithm works, and then ask them when it doesn’t work (for
primes greater than the first few million!)
Here’s a good reference: http://primes.utm.edu/glossary/. . . SieveOfEratosthenes
It’s cool how one keeps forgetting some of the mathematics of antiquity and then
rediscovers it every now and again! It’s like always being a kid. . . something I would
not experience if I had a better memory!
So I figure, teach kids about the Greeks, if they ever forget the lessons then they
will also hopefully enjoy the thrill of re-discovery! We never fully forget things, so
there’s always a bit of Prousts’ ‘madeleine cake’ laying in wait for us in life, especially
as teachers.
Here is Mike’s contribution to the forum:
“Generalisation is important because it allows students to see pat-

terns. During TE 1, one teacher I observed would use generalisations
to assist students make their own rules for calculating problems. E.g.,
in working out area of a quadrilateral students would use stickit blocks.
Say a rectangle 5 high × 4 wide of blocks. Students would stick them
together and count up the total number of blocks. Sooner or later some-
one would recognise that you only have to multiply b × h. The teacher
would right on the white board Alphas rule: Area of a quadrilateral =
b×h
“AND: a Fraction × Fraction in Book 8 page 24. [Ed. The idea

here is that multiplying fractions (say f1 × f2 ) follows easily from finding
the areas of rectangles. One takes two copies of an original rectangle,
use one to shade into the parts for the first fraction, select the number
of parts, e.g., split into five parts and select three of the parts for say
f1 = 3/5. From the shaded arts do the same to just the shaded protion
for the second fraction. Comparing with the original copy we get a
visualization of f1 × f2 .]
“The use of materials to help the student visualise the problem is
great and after a few trials someone in the class/ learning group is going
to come up with the rule. This is a great example particularly in a
rural area like up here on the East Coast, something the students would
identify with.”
Rewa’s contribution to the forum:
“Generalisation is important in identifying generalisations from sim-

ple situations these can then help us solve more specific complex prob-
lems.
“From NDP Book 8 I’d like to share two consecutive activities; ‘Di-
viding Fractions’ page 21 which then leads into ‘Harder Division of Frac-
tions’ page 22.
“The first activity can start with using materials/pictures to find the
answers; I found actually seeing a problem and the solution (particularly
if you pretend it is cake) really helped my students. They also enjoy the
‘doing’ involved in such activities.
“Then the stepped development of the concept through Imaging and
Using number properties particularly through to the Harder Division of
Fractions appears well set out and paced. Student guided in this way will
develop the division of fraction generalisation by their own deductions
and this should result in them feeling more ownership and understanding
of the generalisation. They should be able to appreciate why it works.”
Mathematics Needs for ESOL Students
The Challenge
While the language of mathematics may be universal—the language of mathematics

instruction is not. The challenge is how to teach maths to students whose first
language is not English. Consider the following:
• The language skills needed for mathematics are two years ahead of the offi-
cial system. This means that a year 8 maths problem often requires year 10
comprehension and reading skills.
• Mathematical discourse and syntactical structures include features that make
it difficult for ESOL students to gauge meaning, as they often do not conform
to the usual norms of language.
• Vocabulary in mathematics classrooms not only includes specialised maths
terms, but also everyday terms that take on new meaning when used in a
maths context, for example table, column, product. Also, there are the some
tricky homophones such as sum and some, addition and audition, angle and
ankle, factor and factory.
Solutions
Start with skills assessment
• Often, our bilingual students will have some ability in maths, but not be able
to communicate that ability. While it may be convenient to simply assume
that a less fluent speaker of English is “not good at maths”, an assessment of
current competence is an essential staring point.
• Obviously, it is vital that maths skills are appraised on the basis of cognitive
ability across a range of areas, and not on the basis of the student’s proficiency
in English.
• Incorporate the teaching and communication methods outlined in the remain-
der of this article in your assessment design. Remember also, the tools you
create for use with ESOL students can be used with the rest of the class.
Work problem to solution, not vice-versa
• Historically, we teach maths ‘skills’, then apply them to problems. However

ESOL students better understand by experiencing the problems first, then
developing the solutions.
• In application, this means that rather than starting with numbers, processes
and formulae—we should start with the problem. Once the problem is properly
understood it is much easier to ’get across’ the processes used to solve it.
Use verbal labelling to scaffold learning
• Verbal labelling helps to scaffold learning (Word) by providing language for

visual forms as they are manipulated and represented spatially. For exam-
ple, when discussing percentage and bank deposits, 10 cent coins could be
used to demonstrate the concept. Ensure that the teacher verbally labels the
significant aspects of the topic.
• The second stage of verbal labelling involves asking the student to use the
words and phrases to describe the process, while manipulating or pointing to
the demonstration resources.
• Finally, the student forms an internal model by describing the idea or process
without the use of manipulatives or visual cues. This can be presented in
written form.
• Note: ESOL students need to hear, speak and write using maths language to
develop mathematical literacy.
Identify the language structures students need to complete the task and teach
these explicitly:
• For example, when teaching double numbers in mathematics, teach the word
“double”. Double equals two times, double equals the same thing twice, double
is multiplied by two.
• Act out situations involving doubles. For example:
– “I would like some lettuce plants please. Would four be enough? No, I
would like double that number”
– I have six crayons but Sam has double the number I have. How many
has Sam?
– What is double 12?
• Make cards with the situations on. Students take a card and ask another the
answer. Make sure students are confident with the language “double 4” and
“double that number” and “double that many . . . ”.
Connect instruction to real experiences
• Make the material relevant by connecting classroom work to what happens

outside the class. This has been shown to contribute to the academic success
of ESOL students.
• It is believed that our ESOL students (even more than others) need to believe
that their school work is relevant, so success is more likely when students can
relate material directly to their current interests needs and identity.
Move from the known to the unknown
• Our ESOL students strive to find landmarks in their world—instruction needs

to contain recognisable elements to which new knowledge can be anchored.
Filling in little gaps between these landmarks is much easier than trying to
understand a new idea from start to finish. Begin from a recognised point,
then move on to new territory.
• Where possible, build knowledge using other known ideas. This may require
some re-thinking of teaching methods. It may be necessary to introduce ma-
terial in smaller bites, and once understanding has been achieved, then all the
familiar pieces can be combined.
Move from the concrete to the abstract
• Maths is a useful tool for connecting the language of concrete experiences to

the development of abstract concepts. All students with a strong foundation
in the concrete, will find the progression to the abstract much easier.
• As abstract concepts are primarily communicated through language, the need

for extensive ‘language readiness’ cannot be overstressed. In short—get most
of the language straight first, then use it to discuss abstract concepts. Think
about the language your students will need to discuss the new concept and
teach this. In the thinking through stages, your students will benefit from
talking through the concept with a peer/peers using their first language.
Use non-verbal routes
Remember that non-verbal routes to understanding can reduce the role of language.
Manipulation of concrete materials, diagrams and models will help in the under-
standing of concepts.
Some quick tips
• Stress understanding (rather than rote procedures).

• Remember, language is only one of your instructional tools.
• Utilise other class members with better language skills through co-operative
work and peer-tutoring.
• Use guided practice.
• Do some homework. Find out about the culture and background of your
students.
• Don’t be scared of using your maths vocabulary. Expose students to the

language of maths at every opportunity.
• Expect your students to use their maths vocabulary.
• Identify expected language behaviour and model it yourself or draw attention

to it when exhibited.
• Use multicultural references and examples.
• Pause, look for understanding, repeat and rephrase. Recycle language.

5. Module 5–1 Algebra
Teaching Algebra
What is Algebra
The forum task for this section asked us to write about what algebra means, using
our personal understanding. Below is one colleagues response.
“I have to admit I never really grasped a solid understanding of the

meaning of the word algebra. From my general reading over the years
I know that it derives from the Arabic ‘al-jabr’ which, if I recall, lit-
erally means ”to restore” in the sense of ”restoring balance”. I have
always thought of algebra as the type of mathematics that can be done
using symbols to represent numbers or mathematical ‘objects’ and thus
represent the relations between mathematical ‘things’ using abstract for-
malisms (equations, operations mappings and so forth). Manipulating
symbolic expressions is the core of algebra in this naive view: you do
something to an expression and typically another thing has to be done
to compensate or restore equality (or whatever relationship one is deal-
ing with, possibly changing the relationship itself)—that’s a very narrow
and abstract image of what I used to think ‘algebra’ is roughly all about.
“I do not honestly have a clear native mental view of the usual
branches of mathematics as some writers seem to possess. If asked I
could distinguish elementary geometry from elementary arithmetic, but
I would find it hard to place algebra on any separate branch. To me,
algebra is everywhere in mathematics, on every branch. So is number
theory, so is analysis. It is useful, I can see, pedagogically to separate
and demarcate certain idealized ‘branches’ of mathematics, but I hesi-
tate to do so in an explicit manner for fear that it could give students a
false idea that mathematics is this discrete collection of fields and facts.
53
Module 5–1 Algebra 54
If students want such a view I am sure over time they can develop it for
themselves without my help.
“Oh yeah,. . . I’ve seen plenty of geometry articles with nothing but
dense algebra filling their pages. Perhaps it demonstrates a lack of so-
phistication in my thinking, but to me this suggests the abstract math-
ematical universe of ideas is not an easily compartmentalized space! In
fact, the more I look into it the more it bewilders me. I like that about
it.”
Charting Algebra in the NZ Curriculum
Below is a synopsis of two of the Number & Algebra sub-threads of the NZC.
Equations and Expressions thread. The progression for this thread is from
simple to more complex ideas moving through the levels. Also at each level a new
forms are added to the mix of topics, with extensions to previously introduced forms.
First consider the progression in the addition of forms to the mixture of topics.
The beginning form at Level Four is the linear equation (‘simple’ meaning presum-
ably one unknown typically). Level Five adds quadratic equations. Level Six adds
three more forms: inequalities, exponential equations and simultaneous equations in
two unknowns. Level Seven adds another three: logarithmic equations, trigonomet-
ric equations and simultaneous equations with one non-linear form. Level Eight adds
another three: polynomial equations, simultaneous equations with three unknowns,
and complex number expressions.
The second progression is in complexity. Charting this, we start with Level Four
which merely requires students to exhibit the ability to form and solve simple linear
equations. Level Five increases the complexity by requiring the ability to handle
both linear and quadratic expressions. Level Six increases complexity by including
the additional forms: exponential and simultaneous LE’s. So far these mirror the
addition of forms progression. Level Seven increases complexity by including the new
forms in the form progression but in addition requires students to use more general
mathematical skills vaguely described as the verbs ‘manipulate, form, and use’. Level
Eight increases complexity by again adding the trigonometric and complex forms,
but also by requiring not only manipulation and usage skills but interpretive and
contextual skills as well.
Patterns and Relationships thread. There are also two progressions in this
thread which again can be thought of as form progression and complexity progres-
sions.
Form Progressions: Level Four : begins with four forms whole numbers, graphs,
tables and rules, and two general operations: multiplication and division. Level Five
adds three forms: fractions, integers, and quadratic relationships. Level Six adds
three more: rationals, exponentials and rates of change. Level Seven adds derivatives
and integrals. Level Eight adds discontinuities and limits, and differential equations.
Complexity Progressions: Level Four begins with the requirement of generaliza-
tions and descriptive spatial and number patterns. Level Five increases complexity
with relationships and generalizations extended between all of the new forms added
plus relational pattern recognition. Level Six further extends generalization and
relationships to all the new forms plus introduces rates of change of functions. Level
Seven increases complexity by requiring the ability to sketch graphs of functions
and their derivatives and relate these concepts. Level Eight increases complexity by
requiring application of calculus, with both analytic and numerical methods as well
as interpretation ability.
Commonalities between Threads. The word charts above explain the progres-
sions within the given NZC threads. There is also a common progression across
threads. The Progressions of Forms become more generalized, going from simple
forms to their generalizations (e.g., whole numbers → rationals → complex num-
bers). The Progressions of Complexity move from simple descriptive to multivariate
interpretive (e.g., one unknown & descriptive → many unknowns and relational →
non-linear, numerical and analytic).
Common Student Difficulties with Algebra
We look here at mainly year 8 to 9 students being introduced to algebra. These

are the students who have difficulties that are most foreign (forgotten) to teachers,
and are therefore perhaps the hardest for teachers to correct—the simple but not
obvious misconceptions.
The following examples are based on the discussion in (Swan, 2000).
Example: Many students are exposed to the use of electronic calculators before
understanding the abstractions of algebra. This can lead to the running arith-
metic problem, where students may write,
3 + 5 = 8 + 2 = 10
This is viewed by educators as a result of the compute now mentality interpretation

of the equals sign rather than the correct interpretation as a relationship.
Example: Another example of the compute now syndrome is the side ignorance
problem, where students consider
3x + 54 = 475, to be the same equations as, 3x = 54 + 475
Example: Students beginning learning algebra also often consider an equation like
2x + 4 = 11 to be a process, the process fallacy, rather than seeing it correctly as
a relationship. They then tend to seek to solve it using a guess and check strategy.
They are thus confounded when asked to solve an equation like 2x + 4 = 3x − 6,
because the guess and check is no longer easy to apply.
Example: Another problem is the arithmetic to algebra gap, whereby students

still think of simple equations like 2x + 4 = 11 as arithmetic problems that can be
solved in the same way that 3x = 15 can be instantly seen as solved by staring at it
and figuring out what x has to be without needing to strategically manipulate the
symbols.
Example: Incomplete exposure to algebra fundamentals also leads students to

the left to right fallacy where they read equations only from left to right ignoring
brackets, and so will often lapse into thinking of say, 2(x + 3) as 2 × x + 3.
Example: In linking algebra to geometry and in particular to graphs of functions

there is an inverse to the previous problem, which could be called the left to right
reading paradox whereby students actually (perhaps ironically or paradoxically)
fail to read a graph from left to right! When interpreting a graph as either an
increasing function or a decreasing function one conventionally should be reading
from left to right (unless the x axis is unconventionally labelled). Students often
fail to read graphs this way, at least when beginning to learn about graphs.
Example: Students also tend to think of unknowns as objects—which is the ap-

ples and oranges fallacy. Often useful for teaching algebra the old “you can’t
add apples to oranges and banana’s” mantra is misleading in this sense. It en-
courages students to think of unknowns like x and y in, 4x − 3y = 8 as objects
rather than as possibly many different numbers. The advice is to use the apples and
oranges mantra judiciously and quickly impress upon students the more abstract
thinking that unknowns can stand for any number you like, in principle, provided
the relationship expressed is held true.
This leads to related fallacies such as “3b means three bananas” rather than the
correct “three times the number of bananas”. Or the various units fallacies where
variables or unknowns are confused as units for a measurement, e.g., “3m means
three metres” rather than the correct “three times the mass” or whatever m stands
for.
Example: And yet more surprisingly, many students will suffer in coming to grips
with algebra because of incomplete understanding of arithmetic, such as the inver-
sion operation gap where they simply do not understand that division undoes
multiplication and conversely.
Teaching Strategies for Helping Students with Algebra
Often it is the transition form arithmetic to algebra that is the problem. Teachers
can do a lot to ease later problems by smoothing this transition. The key thing is to
do light testing and assessment to know where the students are at in their thinking
and strategy use, then use what they can do and do know to bridge the divide to
full algebraic thinking.
The Numeracy Development Project has plenty of material to help with lesson
plans to achieve these ends. The rest of this section is pulled from the article (Linsell,
2009).
Linsell and Kieran have classified eleven key strategies in the development of
student comprehension of algebraic operations,
0. Unable to answer the question.
1a. Know basic facts.
1b. Counting strategy.
1c. Inverse operation.
2. Guess and check.
3a. Cover up.
3b. Working backwards.

3c. Working backwards then known facts.
3d. Working backwards then guess and check.
4. Formal operations, view equation as an object.
5. Use a diagram.
There seems to be a strong correlation between student numeracy stage and their
algebra strategy uses, so for example, only multiplicative part-whole thinkers (or
advanced) seem to be able to use strategies 3b to 4 (working backwards and formal
operations resp.).
Hints for Effective Teaching. The main idea is to use numeracy testing to
know what your students are thinking. Then you can more effectively trap their
misconceptions and deal to them. For example, ask a class of year 9 students “what
should we do first to solve 3x + 4 = 13, and odds are some will say, “thirteen
take away four”. But they are probably not thinking algebraically of balancing the
equation, they are merely working backwards. Try to get them instead to articulate
“subtract 4 from both sides”—for that is unambiguously algebraic.
But be patient. Discuss the expression or problem at hand. And make copious
use of word phrased problems rather than raw symbolic expressions to begin with.
Students often grasp algebra better when they get to work it out from scratch using
real world contexts to frame the problem.
Listen to students’ explanations of their own strategies before trying to force
feed them your ‘teachers strategy’. Because otherwise you may just end up con-
fusing them and confusing yourself because you cannot figure out why they do not
understand your teaching.
Then teach them how their thinking can be symbolized using algebraic conventions.
You may even give them some lee-way to invent their own symbolic conventions
before breaking the conventional mathematical community usages.
Helping Students with Algebra Word Problems
Pun only half-intended! The problem is that word and context-rich problems are
great for teaching algebra to beginners, but students often find word problems that
require algebra intimidating and hence they often withdraw and fail to engage with
such lessons.
What can we do to remedy this and gain the most from a rich supply of real-world
word problems? The article (Lawrence, 2009) discusses some teaching strategies and
ideas to this end which are summarized below.
Help Students Meta-Cognitively —The first point is to help students by guid-

ing them through the thought processes needed to typically unwrap and re-
formulate word problems. This can be done for example by re-phrasing the
questions. Consider, the following problem: Peter has more than twice as
many CD’s as Mary. Altogether they have 97 CD’s. And the question phrased
as,
Find the least number of CD’s that Peter could possibly have?
compared to
Write a relevant equation, and use it to find the least number of

CD’s that Peter could have.
In other words, get students to think about how they solve word problems.
Ask them what they consider and how they decide on a strategy? Ask them
what makes them decide to use algebra? Ask them to write their own word
problems and get their friends to try solve them–they should be willing to help
their friends who get stuck.
Help students to unwind problems —rather than thinking of guess and check
(forward strategies) get them thinking about backtracking and unwinding a
problem logically, using backwards operations and inverse operations.
Use a wide variety —get students to collectively solve many examples, and help
them to figure out multiple strategies and methods, share their ideas with one
another. Expose them to each others ways of thinking. A teacher cannot
demonstrate all ways of thinking by themselves, so don’t even try, unless you
are brilliant!
Use problems that require algebra —sounds obvious, but make sure students
cannot just rattle off a solution by using informal methods. The problems
should be complex enough to require algebra (e.g., avoid using simple linear
equation problems with just one term in the unknown). In fact do not use
simple problems that can be done in ones head! This allows students to be
lazy, so don’t do it that way.
Identify three steps —(1) comprehension, (2) translation, (3) solution. These
are three phases that roughly most sophisticated students will recognise they
proceed through to solve word problems. Make sure every understand this
meta-cognitively. But then make sure they can also do it! Most students seem
to fail at the translation and solution phases, so coach them through these in
particular. Or better: get them to coach one another!
Identify your own blind spots —teachers often fail to realize their students are
doing, and thinking about, things differently. Assiduously avoid the trap of
assuming the students think like you do.
Repeat: make the students think —do not let them get away with easy prob-
lems, give them hard problems. For example,
1. Use problems with unkind or ‘unforgiving’ numbers (Lawrence’s type 1).

2. Use problems that cannot be easily rewound, such as ones with multiple
appearances of the unknowns (Lawrence’s type 2).
Use unobvious letters —the idea here is to avoid wording problems using allit-
erative letters, such as ‘A’ for apples, since this tends to make students think
of the variables as the physical objects rather than correctly as the numbers
of those objects.
Avoid reliance on key-words —if you instruct students to identify key-words to

help translate word problems this may tend to become robotically applied,
which by-passes what you really want to develop in your students, which is
native mathematical thinking and fluid interpretation skills.
Focus on translation —one way is to get students to look at symbolic equations

and get them to make up an equivalent word problem, then swap with a friend
to translate each other’s word problem back into algebra.
Emphasise the while problem cycle —students should over time become equally
good at each of four stages, as well as facile with the language of algebra,
1. Assign variables “Let x be. . . ”

2. Write the equation (and reflect upon it, does it feel right?)
3. Solve the equation (and try to get a feel for the reasonableness of the
answer)
4. Check the solution (often it is easier to check than to solve).
Before teaching solution mechanics teach the translation —it helps if stu-
dents get good at translating to and from algebra to English, before spending
too much time teaching them the mechanics of solving particular equations.
Forum Reflections of Teaching Algebra

The forum task for this module was to write about any of the following Epol-338
readings: (Swan, 2000), (F. Van Dyke & White, 2004), (Linsell, 2009), (Lawrence,
2009), (Watson & Mason, 2006).
Blair noted the following:
“All readings taught me new things. These are some notes on the
article by Swan (2000) and a bit on the article by Van Dyke(2004) on
graphing.
“Cultured Algebra: The example lessons taught by ”Steve” are
tremendous. I’d like to use such lessons in my mathematics classes when
I get the chance. A few things were important to me: 1. Taking ap-
propriate time to elicit discussion and sharing of ideas from students
without feeding them answers. 2. Getting students to form correspon-
dences between different representations of the same problems. 3. Using
the students to generate problems—a tactic I like to use myself, so it
was great to see that professional educators like Swan advocate such
approaches.
“What I take exception to is the discussion in many mathematics
education articles about ”student misconceptions” and ”how to deal with
them”. Really! I mean, these are the stuff of learning. If there are no
misconceptions them there is little for a teacher to do except go and
teach moral education and ethics. So in my view misconceptions and
errors are absolutely golden. They are how we know we are expanding
minds and exercising the brains of students. Many authors in the articles
from the Epol-338 readings recognize this, but they still occasionally
lapse into writing with language that betrays a mind-set that students
misconceptions are bad.
“Anyway, Swan’s article, and many others in the course readings, are
tremendous for helping to flip this old view upside down. We aught to
be seeking out misconceptions and treasuring them and ”dealing with
them” is what all teaching is essentially about. The examples and lesson
tips are brilliant ways of achieving these ends.
“I am quite fond of the generating equations strategy. Not only to stu-
dents thereby get something of a view from inside the head of a teacher,
they also get to challenge their peers and have fun doing it.
“Cultured Graphs: I read the article by Van Dyke & White in
a similar vein to the article by Swan. It is all about misconceptions.
It is tremendously helpful to be given an advanced outline of the likely
misconceptions and errors we could expect beginning students to make

when they start out learning about functions and graphs. It should be
fun to try to be a detective and uncover further traps that students and
teachers make for themselves.
“Once again, more than specific techniques that are useful for teach-
ing (which I greatly appreciate nonetheless) what I get most inspired by
from these articles is the culture of mathematics that is assumed in the
classroom. This is the most important thing to foster, more important
than just the raw technical mathematical skills alone.
“It is a long run view. Without the culture we can go a reasonably
long way in advancing students’ technique, at least enough for getting
good NCEA grades. But with a rich culture of learning in the mathemat-
ics classroom we can achieve much, much more I suspect. Eventually,
planning for teaching technique becomes irrelevant and will be acquired
naturally by enthusiastic, curious, inquiring students.
“Not to be too idealistic about this, I would add that it seems much
more difficult for a teacher to inspire students than merely teach them
good technique. So this is a big challenge and I feel somewhat daunted
by all these readings. How am I ever going to make my mathematics
classes as inspiring as I hope and expect?’
Rewa found some nice common themes:
“I found some common thoughts within the readings I’ll try to sum-
marise:
• the starting point for any learning is a clear picture of any prior
knowledge—whether ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ knowledge.
• beware of assumptions—ignoring them is a trap we all fall into from
time to time.
• always be conscious of expert blindness; its hard to remember when
we didn’t understand this stuff, to us it now all seems so easy.
• the need to break things down into small units to teach it—this is
to scaffold the students learning in manageable clearly linked steps,
– this can also serve as a great tool for assessing where students
understanding is challenged.
• take time to ensure that worked examples and exercises actually
demonstrate and require the thinking you are teaching—“press for
algebra”.
• I like the the process of the Algebraic Problem Solving cycle and
how it defines focus areas for learning; each stage and each transi-
tion between stages.
• the use of controlled variation to foster student’s identifying a pat-
tern themselves makes sound sense. They are then more likely to
own the understanding and be able to apply this to more challeng-
ing (and variable) situations.
• translating (and writing ) word problems is a skill in itself and needs
to be taught
“Most of these comments relate to teaching algebra and some relate to
experiences I had during TE1.
“I could go on and on but won’t. Needless to say I greatly enjoyed
the readings and learnt a lot.”
Kate emphasized the recognition of blind spots:
“From reading 2—algebra word problems.

“In this reading I found the expert blind spot will be a factor that
will influence my teaching.
“It is about the common assumptions teachers make in teaching al-
gebra. Expect blind spot: the tendency on one hand, to overestimate
the ease of acquiring formal symbolic languages, and on the other hand,
to underestimate students’ informal understanding and strategies.
“Teachers find it hard to see the problem from the students’ point
of view. This reminds me of myself, I can at times be informal in my
mathematical approach, I use all tools and information I know to solve
problems, often not how a textbook would. I have a concern that my
teaching will be formal to make sure I don’t teach informal ideas. The
below statement gives me comfort and I guess food for thought for my
future practice.
“Students need to recognise that informal ways of solving problems
are not wrong, but they need to know when they are appropriate and
have the ability to switch to a symbolic approach when it is most useful.”
Another way of incorporating informal problem solutions is the encourage them,

or at least not suppress them, but then spend time to get students to reflect on
what they have done and encourage them to attempt to formalize it all. If such
approaches are used early on in secondary school, and yet sparingly, students will
get a good feel for the importance of formalization without loosing the ability to
think laterally and explore intellectually.
Variation and Invariance in Mathematics Pedagogy

This section is not about mathematical variation theory and theory of invariants.
It is about the use of variations to help scaffold students’ learning. The reference is
Watson and Mason (2006).
Here are the main ideas,
• Learning only happens when there is some variation to discern (a supposition,

but sounds reasonably plausible if one uses any sensible meaning of the word
‘learning’).
• Use variation to avoid just showing special cases, but not too much variation
that only the invariances are discerned. A visual example of (a) not enough
variation, (b) just about right, and (c) too much variation, is the following
picture:
O O O
??
??

qq zvrzvrpzvrpl
??
??
q zvrzvrpljzvrpljgpljgdljgdjgd
?? qe qeqeqeeee / bdbdgbdgjbdgjlbdgjlprbdgjlprvzbdjglprvzzvrpjlgdb pljgdbgdbdbbbb
e e q

e gjjllprprvzvz
eeeeqeqeqq q lprprvvz
?? / /
vzz
??
qq
??
??
q

• Perceived variation and invariance generates expectations—these can be used

to inspire students with much needed confidence. So use short sequences of
similar exercises or patterns, and avoid using randomly generated exercises
just for the sake of it.
• Some randomization is OK, to avoid letting students get used to blind imita-
tion of a solution rule or pattern, but spread out over an entire lesson.
• Use very low variation to help students see generalizations and patterns, dis-
cover structures, and discover conjectures.
• Use high variation to help students in remedial situations, e.g., if they expand
brackets incorrectly with negative signs wrong, then use a sequence of three
to five examples where just the + and − signs are varied.
Spreadsheets in Mathematics Pedagogy

The remaining few sections of this course note book are excursions into the use of
technology for aiding teaching of algebra. The course on mathematics education
theory and pedagogy will continue with the Epol-339 course.
Example: Here’s a challenge for students to work on using a spreadsheet applica-

tion. Consider the sequence,
48, 12, 30, 21, 25.5, 23.25, . . .
In this sequence the initial two numbers were provided and form then on the terms
were formed by averaging the two previous terms. You can see that the terms appear
to approaching a limit. Can you create a spreadsheet to do this?
Can you predict what the limit will be given any pair of starting numbers?
The first questions is not a hard task for reasonably computer literate students.
The second is a great extension. It can be studied using a spreadsheet to lok for
patterns, as well as checking the analytic solution. The analytic solution is easiest
to find using algebraic recurrence relations.
Let x be the first number and y the second. Let Tn be the nth average, so
T1 = (x + y)/2. Then we have after a little algebra
an y + an−1 x
Tn =
2n
where an can first be defined using the recurrence relation,
a0 = 1, a1 = 1, and, an>1 = 2an−2 + an−1 .
and we find that we need to evaluate T∞ . Notice first that the recurrence relation is
easy to plug into a spreadsheet to get the series to arbitrary many terms. Students
might think of doing that to get a look at the sequence of an . Next, notice that
an /an−1 = 1, 3, 5/3, 11/5, 21/11, 43/21, . . . . It should not be too hard to prove
that this approaches 2 exactly as n → ∞, and from there an algebraic solution can
be eventually found.
However, a solution is easier and more directly found by examining the pattern of
the averages on the line between x and y. Notice that each new average halves the
remaining interval between Tn and Tn−1 . There are two cases to consider, (i) x > y
and (ii) y > x. In the first case we can write the infinite sum for T∞ straight away
as,
1 1 1 1
x + (x − y)(− − 2 + 3 − 4 . . .) (5.1)
2 2 2 2
and the second case is also simply,

1 1 1 1
y + (y − x)( + 2 − 3 + 4 . . .) (5.2)
2 2 2 2
Evaluating the infinite alternating sign sums,
1 1 1 1
Sn = − 2 + 3 − 4 ...
2 2 2 2
is easy, just note that
1
Sn + 2Sn =
2
so that
1
Sn =
6
and plugging this into equations (5.1) and (5.2) we get in both cases,
x + 2y
T∞ = .
3
It would be fun to watch students arrive at this in some more convoluted way and
then lead them to formalize all their efforts into something so succinct or even
something more direct than illustrated here.
Visual Proofs
There is a very appealing quality about proofs of theorems that can be given with
a few sketches, or sometimes a single sketch. Below are some examples.
Example: What is the pattern used to create the sequences

1 9 10 19 29
6 4 10 14 24
2 7 9 16 25
Get the students to give you the first two numbers, then ask then fill out subsequent
terms by adding together the two previous terms. (These are called Lucas sequences.
The Fibonacci sequence is a Lucas sequence where the first two terms are 1 and 1).
Get the students to use the pattern to complete, fill in the boxes for a few more
terms.
3 11
Now get them to try to find what numbers must be used to make examples like this
work.
5 31
After a struggle some students (or you) can introduce some algebraic notation to
help them solve the problems.
5 x 31
5 x 5 + x x + (5 + x) 5+x+2x+5
= 2x + 5 = 31
from which we get 3x + 10 = 31 or x = 7.
See that algebraic skills of collecting like terms and solving linear equations have
been re-used. More generally, x and y can be used as the initial terms
x y
Example: Using diagrams to illustrate algebraic ideas. Here are three examples.
1. Visualize expanding (a + b)2

a b
2. Visualize factorising a2 − b2
Start with just the cubes,
a2 b2
then imagine cutting a b2 chunk out of a corner of a2 block, then split the
a2 piece along it’s diagonal, (the diagonal from the corner where the b2 cube
was cut-out) and finally form a rectangle with sides a − b and a + b from the
remainder, as illustrated below,
??
??
??
??
??
??
a ??
??
??

_ _ _
a−b b
Example: Finding triangular numbers (or the sum of the first n natural numbers).
n
Let Tn = Area of triangle + area of coloured triangles. The sum of the first n natural
numbers numbers is,
1 1
= n2 + n
2 2
1
= n(n + 1)
2
Some Tips for Mathemagics
These could interest some students.

First, how does Arthur Benjamin square two digit numbers? (http://www.ted.-
com/talks/lang/eng/arthur benjamin does mathemagic.html)
We know a2 − b2 = (a + b)(a − b), so a2 = (a + b)(a − b) + b2 .
To square a two digit number ‘a’ choose ‘b’ so that a + b OR a − b is a multiple
of ten.
Examples
732 = (73 + 3)(73 − 3) + 32

= 76 × 70 + 9
= 5320 + 9
= 5329
Another is,
562 = (56 + 4)(56 − 4) + 42

= 60 × 52 + 16
= 3120 + 16
= 3136
Next, the trick of calculating the missing digit from a product (an easier trick).
A number is divisible by 9 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 9, for example
2358 is divisible by 9 because 2 + 3 + 5 + 8 = 18 which is divisible by 9.
The mathemagician chooses a number which was divisible by 9 (if he didn’t have
one on the board at the time he would have created one). Lets use 2358 as an
example. He now asks the audience to multiply that by any (natural) number. The
answer will be divisible by 9. Of course if one of the factors of a number is divisible
by 9 then the number is divisible by 9.
When the audience read back all but one of the digits, he adds up the digits. He
knows that the total he has just made plus the missing digit must make a multiple
of 9.
So if the audience member read out 1, 9, 8, 0 and 7 the mathemagician totals to
get 25 so knows that the missing digit is 2 so that the sum of the digits is 27.
The trick is not so spectacular if the total of the digits read out by the audience
member is already a multiple of 9. In that case the missing digit is either 0 or 9.
Mathemagics can be a great lead in to getting students looking for patterns. It
also introduces and element of fun into the classroom. Martin Gardner (born in
1914) has written many books which deal with recreational mathematics. There are
26 titles under his name listed in the Victoria library Catalogue.
Figure 5.1: Using GeoGebra for vector algebra in G2 .
Using Technology to Teach Algebra
GeoGebra
GeoGebra is free software written in cross-platform java. You cnau can download it
here: http://www.geogebra.org/cms/en/download.
A good learning resource is: www.geogebra.org/en/wiki/index.php. This tool
could form the basis of many useful lessons.
We could have a look at it for helping students learn about complex numbers.
Complex numbers are of course just a special case of a geometric algebra, G2 .
Example: Cartesian and polar representations of complex numbers.

This is a natural application for GeoGebra. The screen shot in Figure 5.1 shows
tow points A and B and the resultant from input of the formula A − B. GeoGebra
automatically labels this C. Then we use the line tool to connect OA and OB
by vectors labelled automatically w and v respectively, then input the expression
w − v and voila! We get the resultant z that joins OC. From here we can Right-
Click on the vectors to get their polar coordinates. Studentspcan then test the
Euler representation of complex numbers z = reiθ , where r = zx2 + zy2 , and θ =
arctan(zy /zx ).
So in fact we’ve covered cartesian and polar form as well as complex number
algebra. Unfortunately GeoGebra does not conveniently handle multiplication and
division in G2 . For that we can turn to another tool.
CLUCalc and CLICAL
CLUCalc is a Clifford (Geometric) Algebra computer software package with terrific

visualization and algebraic capabilities. You can download it here: http://www.-
clucalc.info/.
It is not as user-friendly as GeoGebra, but it is very powerful and could be a
good introduction to computer programming for geometric visualization. However,
this might be beyond all but the most exceptionally bright students.
CLICAL is a command line program (for DOS but can be run under GNU+Linux
using dosbox for instance), useful for teaching complex numbers in an algebraic
manner. When I last looked CLICAL could be downloaded here CLICAL.zip.
A Final Word on Teaching Arithmetic & Algebra

The final words for this Epol-338 course note book go to our lecturer, Roger Harvey.
“This section has an apparently random selection of ideas, however

I believe that each of these presents ways of illustrating algebraic ideas.
“I believe the diagrams are very powerful ways of illustrating ideas,
and urge you to look for such diagrams to support your teaching.
“This course has introduced you to important ideas in the teaching
of mathematics in secondary schools. Our particular focus has been the
number and algebra strand.
“In EPOL 339 the focus will be the other strands: Statistics, and
Geometry and Measurements.”
6. Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Study—Complex Numbers
This is a special chapter covering the assignment for Epol-338 requiring develop-
ment of our personal PCK in some chosen topic. I chose complex numbers out of
a personal interest in the relationships between geometry and analysis and my con-
cern that secondary school students often are not taught this appreciation. Complex
numbers seem very algebraic, but they are inherently geometrical, so they provide
a beautiful bridge between geometry and algebra that students can then use as a
permanent mental link.
6.1 Ideas for Teaching Complex Numbers
6.1.1 C Possible Teaching Sequences
This section is just a brainstorm of potential approaches. I’ve numbered the ideas,
but there is no particular order of preferences. Numbering is just for ease of reference
later on.
1. Start with trigonometry refresher and then vectors, vector algebra, and in-
troduce complex numbers geometrically, as solutions to equations arising in
geometric transformations for example.
2. Use Barry Mazur’s approach: poetic description of history. Learning about

imaginary numbers by thinking about how they arose historically. get students
to think about why negative numbers and irrationals were so hard for early
mathematicians to swallow. Link also to non-Euclidean geometry. All are
examples of extending the domain of mathematics to weird new concepts.
Without real-world applications would these ideas have ever been discovered?
72
6.1 Ideas for Teaching Complex Numbers 73
Tell them about Cardano’s ‘mental tortures’: “the square root of −9 is not
+3 nor −3 but some recondite third sort of thing [quaedam tertia natura
abscondita]”. Discuss why negative numbers were so hard for mathematicians
to understand. Do this before ever mentioning complex numbers.
√
3. Do not even mention −1 until vectors and rotations in the plane are explored
and the students are asked if they can ‘algebraicize’ these things.
4. Use Geogebra or other software to develop intuitions about vector algebra.

Could try CLUCalc, but it might be better to write our own, or look for a
simpler G2 algebra package. Need to be able to visualize the algebraic results.
6.1.2 Dealing with C Misconceptions
I have not found many descriptions in the literature about secondary school miscon-
ceptions about complex numbers. Perhaps the topic requires enough mathematical
ability to understand that misconceptions are intrinsically rare. More likely, simply
basic mistakes will creep in as for any student beginning a new topic. Could we call
these misconceptions for the sake of argument perhaps?
• Mistaking z 2 for the modulus. A possible misconception from hold-over

to scalar modulus.
How to deal with it: First, to prevent the misconception one might introduce
complex numbers as objects, like vectors (indeed, they are a subset of a proper
vector algebra). So even a C number with zero imaginary part is still a vector.
Students get this view right from the start. They should be trained or guided
into thinking of z = 2 as z = 2 + i0 or 2e2πi .
Alternatively, to overcome the misconception if it persists, again use geometric
views of complex numbers to enforce the relationship with vector algebra.
Another tactic is a little sneakier: just give the student under suspicion a
couple of numeric examples. They can obtain the modulus using z 2 and then
check it using GeoGebra or graph paper or whatever geometric method they
prefer at their disposal. The conflict will set light-bulbs buzzing which should
then flick on fully once they realize the analogy with the ℜ(z) and ℑ(z) is
with vector coordinates, not with real numbers or scalars. I would let them
struggle with this and leave them alone for awhile. Misconceptions like this
are great opportunities for a neat little bit of personal discovery.
• Multiplying the arguments in zw. Instead the should multiply the mag-
nitude in Euler form, but add the arguments. This ‘misconception’ is more
likely a lapse in effective teaching pedagogy! But it is a reasonably common
6.2 Some Tools for Teaching Complex Numbers 74
novice mistake.
How to deal with it: To prevent the misconception you’d teach them first that
multiplying complex numbers is a rotation operation. Always emphasising the
geometric algebra aspects rather than the number aspects of C.
To correct the misconception, refresh their mind on multiplying exponentials,
2a 2b = 2a+b . Leave them to stew to see if they pick up on z = aeiα times
w = beiβ .
There will be other misconceptions. I’ll write about them once I collect a few
after a year or so of teaching.
6.2 Some Tools for Teaching Complex Numbers

As before, I think it is important to at least have a good arsenal of tools even if they
are intended for use well beyond the topics of the secondary school curriculum. So
in addition to the simple geometry software Geogebra I have included the various
geometric algebra packages.
GeoGebra —suitable for scaffolding learning about vector algebra, but cannot
handle vector division. The commercial version does have support for complex
numbers, these complex number modules might be possible to acquire free for
school use.
CLUCalc —tool for algebraic manipulation of complex numbers. It is a Clifford

(Geometric) Algebra computer software package with terrific visualization and
algebraic capabilities. You can download it here: http://www.clucalc.info/. It
is not as user-friendly as GeoGebra, but it is very powerful and could be a good
introduction to computer programming for geometric visualization. However,
this might be beyond all but the most exceptionally bright students.
CLICAL —command line tool also for algebraic manipulation of complex num-
bers. CLICAL is a command line program (for DOS but can be run under
GNU+Linux using dosbox for instance), useful for teaching complex numbers
in an algebraic manner. When I last looked CLICAL could be downloaded
here CLICAL.zip.
6.2.1 Resource of Good C Inquiry Projects and Questions
[TODO: but see for example the books by Barry Mazur, Clifford Pickover, Amir
Aczel, Paul Nahin. We could also use some of the introductory material on G 2
geometric algebra by Hestenes and Lazenby & Doran.]
6.2.2 Advanced Examples
Here are some advanced examples for scholarship students to try. Taken from Pertti
Lounesto’s resources for CLICAL.
The following geometric problems, of high school and undergraduate level, are
solved in the existing curriculum with the cross product and matrices. Here, solu-
tions are presented in the language of Clifford’s geometric algebra. The expressions
can be evaluated with CLICAL.
Problem 1: Determine the distance d of the point P from the line AB.
Solution: d = abs(((P-A)^(B-A))/(B-A)).\\
Explanation: The area of a parallelogram, which is twice as big as the tria
Comment: This formula is applicable in any dimension.
Problem 2: Find the distance d between two lines, say AB and CD.
Solution: d = abs(((A-C)Ê)/E), where E = (A-B)^(C-D).\\

Explanation: Determine the length of the orthogonal rejection of A-C outside
Comment: This formula is independent of the surrounding dimension.
Problem 3: Find the line of intersection, say l(t), of two planes,
v1.r+d1 = 0 and v2.r+d2 = 0.
Solution: l(t) = t*(v1^v2)/e123 + (d2*v1-d1*v2)/(v1^v2).
Comment: A solution, using the cross product, can be written as
l(t) = t*(v1xv2) + (d2*v1-d1*v2)x(v1xv2)/|v1xv2|**2.
For an arbitrary vector c, c/(v1^v2) is a sum of a 3-vector and a 1-vector,

which equals cx(v1xv2)/|v1xv2|**2.
Explanation: The quotient A/B is the orthogonal complement of A within B,

with magnitude |A|/|B|. Thus, (v1^v2)/e123 is a vector orthogonal to the
plane v1^v2 within the e123-space R^3, and (d2*v1-d1*v2)/(v1^v2) is the
orthogonal complement of the vector d2*v1-d1*v2 within the plane v1^v2.
Comment: The intersection of two 3-planes in R^4 is a 2-plane, determined

by its bivector (v1^v2)/e1234 and a position vector (d2*v1-d1*v2)/(v1^v2).
Problem 4: Find out, if a line segment intersects a plane in 3D space; if so, at what
point does the intersection occur; what is the distance between each endpoint
and the intersection.
Assume that the plane contains

the points S = (7,-7,6), T = (1,3,2), O = (0,0,0) and assume that the line
segment has endpoints A = (3,-4,7) and B = (2,4,1).
Solution: While in CLICAL, http://www.teli.stadia.fi/~lounesto/CLICAL.htm,

type
> dim 3
> S = 7e1-7e2+6e3
> T = e1+3e2+2e3
> P = S^T
P = 28e12+8e13-32e23 [this represents the plane]
> A = 3e1-4e2+7e3
> B = 2e1+4e2+e3
> (A^P)/((A-B)^P)
ans = 0.660 [intersection occurs, since this is between 0..1]
> C = A+(B-A)*ans
C = 2.340e1+1.280e2+3.040e3 [the point of intersection]
> abs(A-C)
ans = 6.633 [distance of an endpoint from the intersection]
> abs(B-C)
ans = 3.417 [distance of an endpoint from the intersection]
Explanation: A^P = A^S^T is the oriented volume of the parallelepiped

with A,S,T as edges.
Problem 5: A person looks at a tetrahedron with corners A, B, C, D from the

position P.
Is the face ABC with vertices A,B,C visible

to the person at P? A = (1,2,3), B = (3,7,1), C = (2,0,0), D = (2,3,6),
P = (6,6,6),
Solution: No, for opaque faces or interior. In CLICAL, treat

A,B,C,D and P as vectors:
> dim 3
> A = e1+2e2+3e3
> B = 3e1+7e2+e3
> C = 2e1
> D = 2e1+3e2+6e3
> P = 6e1+6e2+6e3
> ((D-A)^(C-A)^(B-A))/((C-A)^(B-A))
ans = 1.742e1-0.367e2+0.825e3
> ((P-A)^(C-A)^(B-A))/((C-A)^(B-A))
ans = 4.397e1-0.925e2+2.083e3
Since the two vectors, the first ans and the second ans, point to the
same direction, P and D are on the same side of the plane ABC. Thus,
the person at P cannot see the face ABC.
Comment: The two answers compute the orthogonal rejections

(outside of ABC) of the vectors D-A and P-A. The plane ABC is
represented by the bivector (C-A)^(B-A) = 9e12+4e13+19e23.
Problem 6: Determine the angle ABC for A = (5,9), B = (2,3), C = (8,3).
Solution: For complex numbers A,B,C: angle = |Im(log((A-B)/(C-B)))|.

In CLICAL, you can treat A,B,C also as vectors:
> A = 5e1+9e2
> B = 2e1+3e2
> C = 8e1+3e2
> log((A-B)/(C-B))
ans = 0.122-1.107i
Thus, the angle is 1.107.
Comment: This method is generalizable to higher dimensions in the form

angle = |<log((A-B)/(C-B))>_2|, where <W>_2 gives the bivector part of W
(computable in CLICAL as Pu(2,W)).
Problem 7: Find a rotation sending a unit vector x to the unit vector y.
Solution: y = u*x/u, where u = sqrt(y/x).
Explanation: In 2D, x*r/x is the vector r reflected across the line x;

and (xy)*r/(xy) is r reflected first across y and then across x; this
means rotation by twice the angle between x and y; thus the desired
rotation is completed by u = sqrt(y/x). Recall that 1/x = x and x*r*x =
x*(r.x+r^x) = x*(x.r-x^r) = x*(2x.r-x*r) = 2(x.r)*x-(x*x)*r, which
means reflection of r across x.
Comment: The formula is valid in any dimension.
Problem 8: What is the distance of two 2-planes in 5D, with no common points?
Say, for instance of the planes
A: spanned by a1 = e2+5e5 and a2 = e1+e2+e4

B: spanned by b1 = 2e1-2e2-4e3-3e4 and b2 = 2e2+3e3+4e4+e5
where A passes through the origin 0 and B through c = e1+3e3-e4+7e5.
Solution: While in CLICAL, type
> dim 4
input the data, and type
> A = a1â2
A = -e12-5e15+e24-5e25-5e45
> B = b1^b2
B = 4e12+6e13+8e14+2e15+2e23-2e24-2e25-7e34-4e35-3e45
compute the component of c perpendicular to both A and B
> u = (cÂ^B)/(A^B)
u = 1.793e1-0.309e2+2.165e3-1.484e4
where u is the projection of c in that perpendicular direction.

The required distance is the length of u,
> d = abs(u)
ans = 3.194413
Comment: The above construction works in any dimension n for computing

the distance of two planes. If you want to benefit n = 5, you could also
compute v = (A^B)e12345 = 29e1-5e2+35e3-24e4+e5, project c on v to get
u = (c.v)/v; and d = abs(u) = 3.194.
Problem 9: Determine the principal angles between two 2-planes in R4 , the planes
being the xy-plane and the plane spanned by (1,0,1,0) and (0,1,0,7).
Comment: The principal angles between these two planes are 45 degs and
81.9 degs = arctan(7). This means that two lines in the two planes are
separated by at least 45 degs, and at this minimum, the orthogonal complement
of the two lines are separated by 81.9 degs.
Denote the xy-plane e12 by A and the other plane by
B = (e1+e3)^(e2+7e4) = e12+7e14-e23+7e34.
Then B/A = 1-e13-7e24-7e1234, computed by observing that AA = -1. Then

log(B/A) = log(10)-(pi/4)e13-arctan(7)e24, as can be verified by
exponentiation (and observing that e13e24 = e24e13). Thus, the two principal
angles, pi/4 and arctan(7), occur in the pure bivector part of log(B/A),
F = Pu(2,log(B/A)) = -(pi/4)e13 - arctan(7)e24.
The bivector F decomposes into a sum of two simple bivectors,

F = F1 + F2, F1 = -arctan(7)e24, F2 = -(pi/4)e13.
The principal angles f1 and f2 are the magnitudes of F1 and F2,
f1 = abs(F1), f2 = abs(F2).
The problem is to find a formula to for the decomposition F = F1 + F2.
Solution: F1 = F*<sqrt(-F**2)>_0/sqrt(-F**2),
F2 = F*<sqrt(-F**2)>_4/sqrt(-F**2),
computable with CLICAL as follows:
> dim 4
> A = e12
> B = (e1+e3)^(e2+7e4)
B = e12+7e14-e23+7e34
> B/A
ans = 1-e13+7e24-7e1234
> F = Pu(2,log(ans))
F = -0.785e13-1.429e24
> F1 = F*Pu(0,sqrt(-F**2))/sqrt(-F**2)
F1 = -1.429e24
> F2 = F*Pu(4,sqrt(-F**2))/sqrt(-F**2)
F2 = -0.785e13
Thus, the principal angles are f1 = 1.429 and f2 = 0.785.
Comment: The mutual attitude of two lines is determined by the angle

between them. The mutual attitude of two k-dimensional subspaces, in
n dimensions, is given by k angles, one being the smallest angle between
any directions in the two subspaces (another being the smallest angle
between the remaining (k-1)-dimensional subspaces, where the first
directions have been rejected).
Reflection Journal
Reflections for Week One of Epol-338
Reflection on Features of a Quality Mathematics Programme
The journal task was to list six features that we consider most important in a quality
mathematics programme, and write a short justification of one feature that was not
listed by many other colleagues.
1. New ideas/concepts designed to continue on from prior learning so students

can build on knowledge previously acquired, and also leverage the interests of
students be making lessons relevant to their lives and their hobbies.
2. Providing students plenty of opportunity and encouragement to think for
themselves, including promoting creative thinking—students given many chances
to adapt and apply appropriate strategies to solve problems.
3. Differentiate learning to meet individual needs (as students within the same
class have different levels of knowledge).
4. On-going assessment to inform teaching and learning, collection of evidence-
based data and it’s appropriate effective use.
5. Recreate mathematical history—see if students can rediscover already proven
theorems and conjectures. So design the program to teach mathematical his-
tory without just teaching the history.
6. Allowing regular discussion sessions where student ideas and their possible
misconceptions can be aired, and of course ‘corrected’ or extended as desired.
[Editor:] Unless I am mistaken or have not read the forum fully, few colleagues
mentioned the need for mathematical history or for providing open discussion ses-
sion. So I will attempt to justify these features.
81
A justification for teaching mathematics history. For a start, all of the

mathematics we know is history, so it’s hard to avoid. We might as well recognize
the genius’ of the past. But more than this, studying the historical development and
great human giants of mathematics is just plain interesting and connects mathemat-
ics to human existence. Think of the secrecy of the Pythagoreans, the prodigies of
Gauss, Euler and Ramanujan and others. The tragedy of Galois. There is a wealth
of richness in juts the human stories in mathematics history, and this attracts some
students who cannot immediately connect to the excitement of the abstract beauty
of mathematics. Another reason why mathematics history is useful is that through
it we can help students think like mathematicians. In the history we can learn about
the struggles and trials and tribulation of pioneers of mathematics. It can be of great
comfort to anxious students to learn that even the famous figures of mathematics
often made mistakes and pursued fruitless avenues before and even after arriving at
great breakthroughs. Getting ‘right answers’ should really be considered a minor
aspect of school mathematics, and completely subordinate to culturing the more
abstract mathematical sensibilities in students, and a knowledge of mathematics
history helps make this possible.
A justification for mathematics discussion sessions. Recalling my own ed-

ucation at school, I always remember physics discussion sessions were highly mo-
tivating and engaging. In these situations it did not really matter that the lesson
plan was not related to our interests. The discussion sessions served the purpose of
actually creating new interests in students. They broadened our horizons. The same
arguments hold for mathematics. There was nothing particular about physics that
made the discussion sessions so valuable. So I would strongly advocate making time
for such sessions in mathematics classes in addition to the regular teaching periods.
Reflections on School Mathematics Experiences
Here are some brief comments from the interview of two adults about their memories
of high school mathematics.
1. Describe a typical mathematics lesson from secondary school.

Respondent 1. “Teacher tells us the chapter of the work book we are doing
and goes through the topic on the board. Then we do the exercises to get an
understanding.”
Respondent 2. “Laughing at the teacher who had habit of putting her finger
on her lips while thinking and always had chalk marks left behind, or, finishing
all the assigned work a few seconds before the bell so packing up my books etc
to leave and then getting told off by the teacher for not doing my work and
told not to come to class the next day!”
2. Describe a mathematics lesson you have enjoyed.

Respondent 1. “When the teacher was showing how the math formula would
apply in everyday life.”
Respondent 2. “Anything to do with algebra, it was my fav.”
3. What were some of the key features of that lesson?

Respondent 1. “Using math in your life outside school, using the formulas
in a tangible example.”
Respondent 2. “Don’t remember any details, it was just always fun working
out what x was!”
4. Describe a mathematics lesson that you did not enjoyed.

Respondent 1. “When the Teacher could make up their own examples of
how a formula worked outside of what was in the work book.”
Respondent 2. “The one mentioned in 1 above—when I got told not to come
back to class, teacher was an a**hole.”
5. Why do secondary school students study mathematics?

Respondent 1. “Because it is compulsory or because you want to have
options for a science and accounting career.”
Respondent 2. “So they can learn problem solving skills—the logic etc
learned from maths can be applied to pretty much anything else in life.”
6. What did you like about mathematics at school?

Respondent 1. “I knew it was an important topic and it made other topics
easier the more I knew.”
Respondent 2. “Figuring out the answers, especially when I figured them
out faster than anyone else in the class.”
7. What did you dislike about mathematics at school?

Respondent 1. “I struggled to ever make math ‘fun’ and tangible but that
might be just what it is.”
Respondent 2. “Only the attitudes of some of the teachers who clearly didn’t
appreciate my genius.”
Comments. Both respondents were highly intelligent students and adults. The
first is a qualified Veterinarian currently working at MAFF, the second is a lawyer
and policy analyst. There is a common sense of frustration that mathematics lessons
were not pitched at the right level or style for good motivation. The recognition
of the importance of making lessons relevant to life interests is clear—“. . . the logic
learned from maths can be applied to pretty much anything else in life”, and “Using
math in your life outside school. . . ”—among other similar comments. So clearly
there is no problem in recognizing where motivation can be drawn from.
Frustration with teachers was a common complaint—“. . . teacher was an a**hole”.
Nevertheless there are strong hints that the fun of mathematics was glimmered,
but clearly not fully exposed. At the same time a certain defeatist resignation is
apparent—“. . . but that might be just what it is.” Such comments have an important
bearing on the way mathematics teachers approach their subject. Are they merely
transmitting knowledge or training human minds? The human aspects cannot be
ignored. It is easy to teach intrinsically well-motivated mathematics students, but
there are other students who could be enriched and benefit from a better mathe-
matics education and yet might be blocked by being confronted with dogmatic or
harsh unsympathetic teachers.
The second respondent is interesting in having a good attitude to the challenge
and fun of solving mathematics problems faster than others and yet complaining
“the teachers . . . didn’t appreciate my genius.” The first respondent appreciated
the usefulness of mathematics—“I knew it was an important topic and it made
other topics easier the more I knew”—and yet for this person the struggle to make
mathematics fun and tangible probably hindered their development and led to their
drifting away from the subject when they entered university. I know for a fact that
both respondents, particularly the first, very much enjoy figuring out logical puzzles
and brain teasers, so perhaps these interests just weren’t tapped into during their
school years.
Reflections on Week 1 Readings
Comments on Ernest, 2000
The article (Ernest, 2000) was a good read. Most of it was common sense. The
quote I liked most was “most children learn what they are not taught not what they
are taught”. The implication is that sometimes we need to teach by not teaching.
We need to guide students and let them discover things for themselves, as much as
time permits. Yes, it is often noted that direct teaching is quicker, if the aim is to
achieve mastery of examination material and rote learning. But the question being
asked in educational psychology is whether this is really beneficial in the longer

run for students and for society. There is no definitive answer, but an emerging
consensus, at least circa 2010 (and going back at least a decade or more) is that is
is indeed more beneficial to society and for individuals to make more out of school
education than equipping students with high level examination ready skills.
A Warning. Despite all the ferment and resolve mentioned in the literature, to
make teaching—especially in mathematics and sciences—more interesting and fun
and relevant, we should acknowledge that a teacher can be very much in love with
mathematics and absorbed by it and yet still fail to imbue students with any en-
thusiasm and understanding and long term motivation.
Why do private schools follow national curriculum? This is hinted at in

the work cited by Ernest. Ernest cites reasons such as private schools using the
same assessment examinations, so naturally they tend to align with the national
curriculum. This is observed in the UK, but I suspect it is a trend in many countries,
including New Zealand. But again, we could ask why? Seriously! Why might private
schools feel the need to assess students using the same standards as public schools?
They have freedom to go beyond the public school obligations and limitations. I
personally cannot understand the reasoning, unless the national curriculum is so
brilliant that it cannot be improved or adapted to meet a schools local needs. I
would love to see some experimental schools established in New Zealand to trial
mathematics and science programs that are different. Even if they make only minor
deviations from the NZ curriculum, and even if the experimental schools do not
deliver outstanding results, it would still be worthwhile looking at the results and
impact upon student perceptions and skills.
I think there is a societal taboo about using students as ‘guinea pigs’ in this way.
It’s a cousin of the ‘NIMBY’ attitude. But aren’t all maverick teachers in effect
doing this? We do still have great pockets of maverick teaching in New Zealand? I
would hope? Most parents of students taught by such teachers would be grateful
about such unofficial experimentation. It just isn’t officially acknowledged, and
worse—the results of innovative teaching and deviations from the curriculum are
not acknowledged and shared, which is tragic. That is why experimental teaching
of real students needs to be officially supported.
Comments on Begg, 2009
The chapter (Begg, 2009) was delightfully written. It is worth reading for some
of the references alone. Andy Begg asks us to ponder our favourite learning the-
ories. I do not really have a theory of learning. If I do it would be termed the
organized chaotic approach. I’m not trying to be cute with that phrase. The idea is
to have reasonably non-linear classroom dynamics but structured by the teacher to
help optimize learning. That is, provide children with a huge diversity of experience
and in some lessons they will hopefully pick up some beneficial knowledge and wis-
dom. This non-theory is actually compatible with many modern so-called theories
of learning, such as multiple intelligences, constructivism of all flavours, complexity
theory, enactivism, metacognitive learning theories, neo-behaviourist theories and
more. My philosophy is why pick just one of these as a guide when they all have
such good and interesting perspectives?
In some sense this is just what complexity theory applied to education theory
recommends. The human mind is such an intricate and mostly unfathomable things
(and that’s not even counting the incredible brain for starters) that it seems foolish
to think we can have any one theory of mind that informs education practise. Com-
plexity theory embraces this realization and aims for immersion of the human mind
in a rich experience of stimuli and learning environments in order to maximize the
learning ability of the mind and brain. In applied educational complexity theory we
hold nothing back from our students and make no limiting assumptions about what
they can grasp and comprehend. The limits of the lessons are up to the students
to determine, not us as teachers. We are just guides and mentors—albeit with a
heavy responsibility in most schooling situations with the pressures of parental and
administrative expectations on our shoulders.
Personal aims for mathematics education. Another point Begg invites us to

ponder is to think about what our personal aims are for mathematics education. My
current journal entry for this would have to be fairly vague, deliberately. I do not
think mathematics can be tamed to achieve some grand end. Studying mathematics
is an end in itself. We should teach it for many reasons, some pragmatic and some
frivolous. But we should at least teach mathematics so that all the skills students
need to pass NCEA examinations and so forth emerge as mere side-effects of a
good liberal mathematics education. It should be analogous to teaching music or
art. A music student will acquire skills in typesetting compositions and analysing
harmonies and so forth as a mere by-product of simply wanting and attempting to
compose beautiful music. So it should be in mathematics. Those are my vague
aims.
The mathematics education aims poster idea. It is probably not enough,

legally, to simply aim for students to fall in love with mathematics. So I would try
to start each academic year by discussing the aims for the year with my students,
much as Andy Begg suggests in his Points to Ponder (Begg, 2009, page 17). I think
the poster idea of the class aims is an excellent idea. I will start with my own aims
and get students to elaborate and add their own, it could be i the form of a mind
map and could be updated throughout the year—a living poster. At the end of the
year we will publish it in a final glossy form and attach it to the classroom wall as
a new leaf in a big wall calendar of such posters for all years.
Now I have articulated them, achieving these aims is another problem. Unfortu-
nately the margin of these pages is too narrow to contain an exposition.
Importance of Icebreaker activities. For a while now I have been worrying

about these. They seem to me to be crucial activities for capturing students in a
warm humane manner at the fresh start of each year in a new mathematics class. I
would like to build up a big repertoire of cool icebreaker activities that really get to
the heart of good teacher-student and student-student relationship building. The
importance cannot be over-stated. If students are not welcomed and not made to
feel fully included and part of an adventure larger than themselves in school then
we risk loosing so much of their potential.
[NOTE to self. Start a Wiki topic for awesome mathematics oriented icebreakers.]
Pedagogical strategies. I think Begg and many other educationalists often list
some very handy ideas that are fairly intuitively obvious. Nevertheless it is useful
to note them down, if only for cementing them better in long term memory. Here
is Andy’s short but sweet list:
• Respond to a student’s question with a question.
• Try asking questions of students sitting close to talkative students rather than
asking the talkative one.
• Have students attempt a task individually, then get them to discuss it with
someone else,then with a group of four, then get groups to share their discus-
sion with the whole class.
Not a word of mathematics in this list, so it’s completely generally applicable.

Comments on Frankcom, 2009
Gillian Franckcom’s article (Frankcom, 2009) was less instructive, I thought, com-
pared to the previous two readings, but it did get me thinking about problem solv-
ing. I’ve always thought problem solving and judicious selection of good examples
is a highly useful pedagogical strategy. I have also always thought, as long as I
can remember thinking about mathematics pedagogy, that Skemp’s description of
instrumental mathematics teaching is indeed what many high school mathematics
teachers operate. I agree with Frankcom and Skemp that it is not very good for
developing strong concept development in students minds.
The Leap Frog Problem. I thought this was a good conceptual problem to
investigate. It has good generalizable elements and can instruct students in many
aspects of mathematics practice if the activity is guided wisely. Hands on trialling
is easy, the task is simple and yet the abstract rule for a minimal move number is
a challenge to discover. It certainly took me quite a while to derive the minimum
number of moves for a general m ‘green’ frogs and n ‘red’ frogs initial line up. I’m
still not sure of an algorithm for determining the minimum number of moves for an
arbitrary line up of frogs with reds and greens initially mixed up. I guess that’s a flaw
in the activity—it is not clear to me what abstract mathematics the most general
case involves. I am not motivated by the game of leap frog to bother investigating
much further.
Now, if the activity had instead been framed as a problem related to computer
sorting algorithms then that would have been highly motivating. Speed sorting
algorithms are highly valued in computer science, where dumb algorithms can end
up costing vast CPU time or even worse, as the number of items to sort increases.
However, the challenge of worrying about multiple ways of accomplishing the end
goal is intrinsically intriguing, so that is a good attribute to have for a class activity.
There are of course infinitely many ways to move the frogs, most of which are total
lunacy, but at least two broad strategies seem apparent. One is to use tight sequences
of shift+jumps to move the red frogs past the green frogs using slide moves for the
fewer red frogs and jump moves for the green frogs. The second broad strategy is
to think more about spacing the frogs out so that jumps can be coordinated like a
game of Chinese checkers. Intuitively the first ‘tight’ strategy seems to be likely to
be more efficient. The Chinese checkers strategy would at first inspection appear
to have too many backwards moves to get the spacing right. But maybe there
is a variation or combination of the two strategies that is optimal. Surprisingly
this turns out to be true when the constraint of not allowing ‘backwards’ moves is
imposed—but only when the number of frogs in total is greater than five and there
are more than two of each colour of frog. Such ‘edge cases’ in a problem are difficult
for novice mathematicians to get to grips with and so the more constrained problem
is probably more desirable to stick to for most high school classes.
* * *
The next few sections are more reflections on the first week of Epol-338, with
no specific readings in mind.
Why do we teach mathematics?
The online forum discussion produced a great load of reasons why mathematics is
useful and what features characterize a quality school mathematics programme (see
page 14)
It’s interesting that among the various reasons given for including mathematics in
a school curriculum there is usually one stated something along the lines of “learning
to think creatively. . . ”. I like to be more direct and state that the same reasons
one might want music or art in as school curriculum, minus the purest specific art
or musics reasons, are exactly the same reasons for including mathematics. The
idea is that along with all the utilitarian and other unreasonably useful aspects of
mathematics the subject should stand on its own even if we removed any allusion to
these pragmatic uses of mathematics. This, in my mind, gives me a guide to the way
to teach mathematics which makes it as much fun and intellectually stimulating and
creative as art or music (some would argue more-so). The idea is that mathematics
is essentially an art. A very special art. The canvas is the human mind. I won’t
drone on about this here, in fact I prefer to leave this post at that and let you ponder
and criticize my view.
Why do we need to teach “numeracy”?
So, continuing from the “why teach mathematics thread”, this got me thinking
about the basics—reading, writing and arithmetic.
Why do we need to teach these at school? Seriously! I know they are necessary
skills. But why are they not acquired by children in a natural way, why do they
need to be ”taught”. I would think that most children simply acquire these skills in
the process of doing interesting things. I want to find some research on this.
I suspect direct teaching methods are effective only because they are necessary
in bringing poorly educated students ”up to speed” with numbers.
But do we really need this? I strongly suspect that if early childhood and primary
education was restructured so that children get exposed to advanced concepts of
number and even symbolic expression and the like, then they would simply assimilate
the basics of numeracy without needing later to have it force fed to them once they
find they are developmentally behind some sort of socially constructed eight ball.
I am convinced that children can instead be given interesting and amusing tasks
to work on that will natural give them self-motivation to learn a few basic facts.
There should be little need for a teacher to directly teach basic numeracy facts.
This will probably depend a great deal on the inherent abilities of each student.
Some may actually benefit from direct teaching, it might be just more suited to
their innate learning mode or preference or comfort.
So I’m not 100% opposed to direct teaching and programmes like the NDP, which
seems to be quite effective in achieving it’s stated goals. But maybe the goals need
to be challenged. Are they really all that important? Who decides what level
of numeracy is essential by a given age? Wouldn’t it be better to simply allow
children to monitor their own progress and figure out what they need to work on
for themselves? I know this sounds a bit risky and radical, but hey, that’s why we
have Robin and Roger to reign us in with a bit of evidence-based reality experience.
To be clear, and totally radical, what I mean is that we should not even need
to teach children to perform basic numerical calculations ”in context”. Don’t get
me wrong. Context if fine, and I’ve often encountered the hurdle of trying to teach
students beyond their current level—with the usual complaints that I’m going over
their heads. But what I want to critique here is the boring use of situational context
to teach basic numeracy skills. My belief is that a good teacher should really go
well beyond merely providing context for an achievement objective. OK, so this is
not always easy to plan and accomplish, but it is the high goal I am after here, not
actual immediate bulls-eyes.
So simply providing context is not the best we can do IMHO. Yet I, more than
others, struggle to provide even a modicum of context. Witness the residency ex-
ercise when Mike from Mahia challenged my group to come up with some reason
why the rule for adding exponents when multiplying a number raised to powers. I
couldn’t immediately think of a useful context, even though I know they exist and
I’ve used the rule many times in my career.
Mike’s question has haunted me. I think I can teach any child these rules for
exponents. But I find I do not want to just teach them rules and provide them with
some context for when the rules might be useful. I’d rather get students to think of
some puzzle or artistic problem, which as an aside requires exponentiation and then
guide them towards the rules for adding and multiplying exponents. So I’m trying to
articulate and distinguish between mathematics lessons that merely provide naked
situational context and better lessons that provide richly layered context.
Then the challenge is to avoid cognitive overload with consequent drastic reduc-
tion in learning.
I might be wrong too, after all, Piaget was not entirely mad. There are no doubt
reasons why it might be futile to get a 4 year old to think about their multiplication
tables. Yet I believe that most children could be taught to get their sums right by
about the age of 5, and do so without any traditional direct teaching or rote learning.
The foundational rote learning should, I think, emerge naturally as the children find
they need to memorize some basic facts in order to accomplish the more interesting
work that teachers are stimulating and encouraging them to get into.
I’m not saying there is no role at all for teachers to do some direct teaching or
memorization activities with kids. Memorization is a great skill to know how to use
and develop. It’s not my strength, so I know what it’s like to be weak in this area!
I just think the “learning” of times tables and how to compute savings on shopping
lists or working out how to give someone the correct change at a checkout and other
such numeracy tasks are a bit lame and really do not need to be taught. They can
easily IMHO be acquired in the more liberating process of getting children to think
about mathematics in an artistic way.
I should really back this up with some evidence-based data. Sadly I think it’ll be
a few years before I’m allowed to let loose on real children with these wacky ideas.
Then it might not work out, or maybe someone has already tried such experiments
and shown that the teaching of basic numeracy really does need to be fairly direct,
for example, maybe many students just get the feeling of being too ”behind” in basic
mathematics that the drop out somewhat if they aren’t fed these basics.
Module 1 Reflection—Mathematics Then and Now
The entry here addresses the consideration of “all the material we have covered
so far” to answer “what similarities and differences do you see to the ways that
you were taught mathematics at secondary school?” and “What are some of the
implications for your own teaching?” Here is one set of responses.
1. What similarities and differences do I see to the ways that I was taught math-
ematics at secondary school?
Similarities: The topics have hardly changed at all, which is a little disap-
pointing. There is however perhaps more scope in the modern curriculum for
student investigation and exploration.
Differences: There has been a huge change in emphasis away from rote
learning and direct instruction teaching towards more constructivist education
in the mathematics curriculum and teaching guidance. The respect for the
diversity of students is far more pronounced in modern teaching. There is now
more emphasis on cultural influence and real world context.
I remain sceptical about whether the actual teaching practices in most schools
has really changed all that much towards these more enlightened philosophies
that have been articulated. We would like to believe mathematics education
has improved, but I suspect there has been relatively weak progress. I say
this based on my experience tutoring secondary school students. Pretty much
the same complaints about mathematics are raised by my students, speaking
about their schools, as were heard in my interviews with adults for Roger’s
pre-class survey assignment.
2. What are some of the implications for my own teaching?
Clearly I will need to do a huge amount of work to devise elegant and effec-
tive lesson plans for my prospective mathematics students. I will need good
monitoring tools to make sure the students are not suffering in the ways that
the students I regularly tutor claim to have suffered. I will need to search out
and befriend the best mathematics teachers I can find to learn from them how
to motivate and capture the interests of a broad range of students. I will need
to gather resources to help illuminate the basic curriculum topics in novel and
exciting ways. This is going to be difficult, because the curriculum topics are
very elementary and do not always admit much scope for stimulating investi-
gation. Or rather, to be correct, I should say that the NZCEA exam examples
seem very elementary and rigid—whereas the curriculum is fine and allows
plenty of creative scope—and so it is the exam regime that does not admit
much creativity, if that is, one is endeavouring to help students get good at
merely passing the exams (not a pressing goal IMHO). This is a good challenge
however, it will just take some time to build up a stock of good lesson plans
and then test their effectiveness and revise and iterate to keep improving.
Reflections for Week Two of Epol-338
The Art of Starter Activities and Interventions
These were highlights for me from Neyland (1994).

U TIP:It’s a good idea to refer back to this article by Neyland for his nice little
U
examples of paired starter and intervention questionings.
TIP:Make starter and intervention questions part of the detail of all my lesson
plans. Even if they are not used or if they are attached to a separate page of the
lesson plan, have some handy.
Planning for rich mathematical activities. The advice is to do what I just

jotted down! Have good starter and intervention questions on hand, appropriate
for the topic, and designed to laser-like focus student attention on the learning
intentions. Then assess, evaluate and improve the lesson plan afterwards. You can
U
always make improvements.
TIP:Also, do the activity yourself. Rehearse by videoing yourself delivering the
lesson and watch it. Try your best to anticipate all the varied ways a student might
be tempted to think about the problem as you have introduced it in your rehearsal.
Interpretation of “Teaching Areas of Triangles”
To recap: we studied and practised the lesson plan from page 67 of Chambers (2008).
Here is my reflection on this. Overall I fond this to be good practice. The lesson
plan was adequate and not too difficult to follow. I departed from it a little. I did
not get around to successfully helping all students figure out how to find areas for
general triangles, there was some background trigonometry missing. They were all
able to at least compute areas of any triangle when given the base and height.
For the specific questions the Module notes suggest, here are my responses.
• What were my successes?

The lesson intention for right angled triangles was achieved but not as smoothly
as anticipated. After the basic right angle triangle work, I went to too slightly
too high a level too quickly and had to backtrack to the some basic geometry
and trigonometry, and then had to give up and just give the triangle altitudes
to keep the lesson flowing. It was good to have a few prior worked examples,
both for demo and as exercises for the ‘students’. The idea of splitting any
triangle into two right angled triangles and summing the two right angled
triangle areas worked quite well for most students, once the basic formula was
understood from the halved rectangle beginnings.
I did a lot of pre-planning, going over Chamber’s plan, and working through
examples to anticipate student questions. This helped me meet most tricky
questions, such as why the formula still works for arbitrary triangles.
• What will I try and improve if I teach this lesson again?

The very first bit where I asked students to copy the lesson aim into their work
books was bad. The jargon ‘derive’ was not appreciated! So next time, for
this level of class at least, I would not use the phrase “we are going to derive
the formula for the area of triangles” but instead say or write it up as “to find
out the formula for calculating the area of triangles” or just “we are going to
find out how to get a formula for the area of triangles”.
I would first run a complete lesson on basic trigonometry, how to find the
altitude of a triangle. Make sure they understand this. I would give the stu-
dents more examples and time, especially time to mentally rotate odd looking
triangles to see how to prove or at least understand why any triangle can be
decomposed into two right angle triangles which can further be copied and
reassembled into a rectangle. The problem was that my dummy students had
forgotten their Level 6 & 7 trigonometry! So I adjusted the lesson in-situ to
just give them the triangle altitudes so they did not have to worry about the
trigonometry.
For the arbitrary triangle situation I tried first the jigsaw pieces derivation,
but that confused my dummy student, the idea of formulating and solving
pictorial equations was too foreign. In any case, they immediately grasped the
applicability of A = 21 bh, so there was no need (for this student) to use the
pictorial derivation.
I was not quite 100% sure my volunteer students had entirely understood
deeply what they were doing. Next time I would try to be clearer to impress
upon my students that they are not pleasing me by getting correct answers, but
rather by thinking hard and deep about what they are doing and questioning
it all. So I would also do more to evaluate their deep understanding. It has to
be said my volunteer students were not exactly willing.
Reflections for Week Three of Epol-338

TODO: see online Journal entries for Epol-338.
Reflections for Week Four of Epol-338

TODO: see online Journal entries for Epol-338.
Reflections for Week Five of Epol-338

TODO: see also online Journal entries for Epol-338.
6.2.3 Reflections on Polya’s ‘How to Solve It’
First, I need to re-read this book (Polya, 1945). I’ve forgotten most of it, but I recall
it was very useful, and could form the basis of one or two school lessons at about
years 10 to 11.
Here’s a summary of Polya’s discussion of heuristics, pulled from a wikipedia
entry. The book contains a dictionary-style set of heuristics, many of which have to
do with generating a more accessible problem. For example:
Heuristic Informal Description Formal ana-

logue
Analogy Can you find a problem analogous to your Map

problem and solve that?
Generalization Can you find a problem more general than Generalization
your problem?
Induction Can you solve your problem by deriving a Induction
generalization from some examples?
Variation of the Can you vary or change your problem to Search
Problem create a new problem (or set of problems)
whose solution(s) will help you solve your
original problem?
Auxiliary Prob- Can you find a sub-problem or side prob- Sub-goal
lem lem whose solution will help you solve
your problem?
Here is a prob- Can you find a problem related to yours Pattern recog-
lem related to that has already been solved and use that nition, Pattern
yours and solved to solve your problem? matching, Re-
before duction
Specialization Can you find a problem more specialized? Specialization
Decomposing Can you decompose the problem and ‘re- Divide and con-
and Recombin- combine its elements in some new man- quer
ing ner’ ?
Working back- Can you start with the goal and work Backward chain-
ward backwards to something you already ing
know?
Draw a Figure Can you draw a picture of the problem? Diagrammatic
Reasoning
Auxiliary Ele- Can you add some new element to your Extension
ments problem to get closer to a solution?
Comments: The technique ‘have I used everything’ is perhaps most applicable to

formal educational examinations (e.g., n men digging m ditches type problems).
Polya’s book has achieved ”classic” status because of its considerable influence
(see the next section).
Other books on problem solving are often related to more creative and less con-
crete techniques. See lateral thinking, mind mapping, brainstorming, and creative
problem solving.
Reflections on Formative Assessment

This reflection is a lead up to the Epol-338 final exam. There is a question on
formative assessment in mathematics. The main thing I have to note about for-
mative assessment is that it fits in with my entire philosophy of education in that
everything that is done in the classroom should be done for aiding learning. So any
assessment that is treated as a formality or merely to assess the rank of students is,
to my mind, a waste of time and unnecessary. Formative assessment on the other
hand is valuable both as a learning tool and as a measure of student progress.
It only helps the cause of formative assessment that most education research
shows formative assessment is an important part of mathematical pedagogy.
It is also worth bearing in mind the collective wisdom from Wikipedia on the
topic of formative assessment (emphasis is mine—editor):
Formative assessment is both the best and cheapest way to

boost student achievement, student engagement and teacher pro-
fessional satisfaction. Results surpass those of reducing class size or
increasing teachers’ content knowledge. Only short-term (within and
between lessons) and medium-term (within and between units) assess-
ment is effective. Effective assessment is based on clarifying what stu-
dents should know, creating appropriate activities to obtain the evidence
needed, giving good feedback, encouraging students to take control of their
learning and letting students be resources for one another.
—Wikipedia, ‘Mathematics education’
The likely Epol-338 examination question will ask us about “using evidence to
inform teaching”. The style of questions is:
Describe two assessment strategies you could use in mathematics.

Explain how you use the information gathered by thorough use of these
assessments to plan student learning.
Here is one possible model answer, (beware, this is just an opinion and has not been
graded or vetted):
One: This answer focuses on younger children, at high school year

9 to 10, and the teaching of number and pattern as a prelude to alge-
bra. The approach would be to use the Numeracy Development Project
(NDP) diagnostic assessment style. The NDP Books have a wealth of
interesting problems suitable for challenging year 9 to 10 students. For
year 10 students one could probably still use the NDP strategy stages.
They could be extended for more capable students who are already at the
advanced multiplicative part-whole stages of thinking. For example by
starting formal algebraic stages of thinking, full abstract generalization
and getting into heuristic and proof strategies (cf. Polya’s dictionary of
heuristics).
From the diagnostic assessment we would have a record of the thinking

stages of each pupil in our class. We could then plan individual plans for
groups of students, grouped of course according to their ability. The indi-
vidualized plans could then still be used in cooperative group style lessons.
The teaching plans could for example focus on moving students to higher
stages of thinking. One way to do this would be to start by teaching the
students the philosophy behind NDP—let the students know what you are
doing at meta-cognitive level. Introduce them to the ideas of strategy use
and thinking stages, and then see if they can identify their own stage.
This will involve diagnosing themselves and maybe their peers. Subse-
quent exercises and learning could be a mixture of teacher exposition,
when needed to explain good structure and clear up misconceptions, with
cooperative group work where students help each other move through the
exercises designed to foster higher levels of thinking and exploration of
different strategies (solve this problem in at least three different ways).
For some lessons the established working groups could even be split up (if
the class is highly differentiated) so that the more advanced students can
get to test their knowledge of strategy by tutoring the less able students–
without of course any overt mentioning of superiority et cetera.
Two: This answer looks at formative assessment using (a) ‘burning
questions’ and (b) five minute quiz sessions. The general strategy here is
to use such assessments to plan lessons by revealing students’ knowledge
gaps and misconceptions, and involving students deeply in the assess-
ment process so that the assessment has a three-fold learning purpose:
(i) reveals things that need to be worked on, (ii) opens assessment for
discussion and analysis so students learn why and how they think the
way they do and the way their peers think, and (iii) provides the teacher
with a record of student progress for planning and lesson adjustment.
For the burning questions the teacher has introduced a topic and gone
through a lesson or two, and before moving on to the next topic they en-
visage planning two more lessons, maybe a short project or assignment,
and maybe a summative test. Before doing so they spend 20 or 30 min-
utes with the students who are asked if they have any ‘burning questions’
about the topic or project. Simple questions are dealt with straight af-
terwards, others are then used as a basis for the next lesson, when the
teacher will address them fully. This way, the students have been involved
in the assessment and plenty of discussion has been allowed which serves
both diagnostic and informative purposes.
For the ‘five minute quiz’ the teacher spends the end of a lesson (perhaps
10 minutes) administering a short quiz with about five carefully chosen
questions designed to reveal misconceptions or force students to think in
specific ways. The idea then is that after the quiz, the students score
themselves before being told the answers. They are thus forced to think
about their state of knowledge and skill level. The teacher could lead a
discussion of the predictions. Students will then be able to reveal their
fears and doubts openly without the spectre of embarrassment and compe-
tition associated with actual grades. The research literature suggests that
students are generally quite honest about such advance self-assessment,
and even if they under-rate themselves, they are given an opportunity to
explain why they rate themselves low—and they should be challenges on
this—if they cannot explain why they rated themselves lowly then they
should be encouraged to revise their score and aim for an accurate pre-
diction (score themselves for each question separately). With this done,
the teacher should have plenty of information for preparing the next les-
son or helping to scaffold the skills and knowledge needed to complete the
assignment or test. The test would be extensive, not regurgitative”. The
teacher would then supply the quiz answers for further self-assessment.
They would also gather the results (predictions and actual scores) for fur-
ther lesson planning and record keeping to keep track of student progress.
[In your written exam answer you would then write a paragraph
explicitly linking the assessment types (a) and (b) to each of the three-
fold aims (i)–(iii).]
In summary, the ‘burning questions’ provide a way for students to
assess themselves and provide the teacher with explicit feedback in a re-
laxed stress-free manner. The teacher then should have plenty of infor-
mation on which to base future lessons, either by grouping students for
focused work, or using whole-class exposition for common questions and
issues. With the ‘five minute quiz’ strategy the students get to self-assess
and think about their abilities without the stigma of grading. The focus
is then squarely on thinking mathematically rather than worrying about
scores. Yet, in the end, scoring is still done, but with the advantage that
it is no longer a big stress nor a big focus.
Reflections on My Personal Teaching Style

On first TE I was not able to feel free and unencumbered enough to practice teaching
they way I want to teach. Therefore I’m in a real quandary, half way through the
Diploma course and still not having any idea of what it feels like to experience
teaching nirvana. So I have no concrete models of how to proceed. I have not seen
any brilliant lessons delivered, just some good solid lessons, but mostly teacher-
centred stuff and students who seem a bit uninterested.
My interest is primarily in exciting students, engaging them and getting them
really interested in mathematics and science. I have ideas about how to achieve
this, but no model yet of how to do it in 50 minute blocks of teaching with a heavy
pressure and expectation of getting through a curriculum syllabus.
I do not honestly see much point in teaching students the standard syllabus fare.
It is all useful stuff of course, but is largely devoid of excitement and interest, it is
just a lot of technique and formulae. This is fine as a resource, a background. What
I want to teach is inquiry, projects, open-ended investigation, with the technical
resources and syllabus as just a reference. No one has really illustrated to me how
to go about doing this on a daily basis working at a traditional high school. Indeed,
everything seems to be set up to do the opposite and just teach the tests. That’s
unsustainable for me, I would go insane.
Partly the problem is with my instincts and philosophy of classroom discipline.
My approach is that overt discipline procedures should be rarely if ever employed.
I should not need to spend any time disciplining students, because they will be so
interested and motivated to learn that they don’t have time to misbehave. However,
getting students into such a culture is hard. It has to be done as a first teaching
stage, before any core curriculum teaching can be undertaken.
On teaching experience assignments there was no scope for such preparatory
teaching, and the associate teachers had only done a weak job on setting up such a
culture in their classrooms. So most classrooms were already either fairly disruptive
or totally disinterested in learning. At least this was the case in mathematics and
science. It appeared not be so bad in other subjects like English, art & graphics,
music, and physical education.
Yet, I felt is was ‘not my place’ to spend the TE lesson time teaching the students
the virtue of good behaviour, cooperation, and enjoyably disciplined study. The
associate teachers seemed to think their methods and set-ups were fine. So they
somewhat cramped my creative urges. In addition, I felt rather depressed and
under pressure to do some traditional teaching. So it was not a great experience
at all, apart from having my eyes opened somewhat to the deplorable state of most
secondary school science classrooms.
I kept asking myself why does it have to be this way? What can I do about it?
My tentative answers are that: (a) the situation is due to existing school admin-
istrative structures, attitudes, policies, and examination regimes, and the lack of
risk-taking by teachers. Then, (b) all I can currently think of doing (aside from get-
ting into education policy research or governance) is to take my ideas about quality
teaching and just implement them in my own classrooms and see what happens. If
my teaching turns out to be a disaster then I’ll concede the traditional methods have
merit, at least for my teaching. It is always possible that a better teacher might
have more success with the methods and style that I prefer. However, I do not want
to give up on my vision for teaching, and will probably never fall back to traditional
instruction methods and teaching to tests. I would rather find another profession
than revert to old-school teaching.
One problem with my plan is the agonizingly long time it takes for me to prepare
quality lessons. It does not seem possible to sustain for an entire year teaching 15
hours a week or more. It’s simple mathematics. It takes about 8 hours to prepare
a quality lesson, the plan has to be drawn up, resources organized, analysis of the
lesson, testing of the lesson plan, revision and so forth. In fact 16 hours is a minimum
preparation time. Thus a minimum of 120 hours a week. There are only 168 hours
in a week. That leaves only 48 hours for sleep, eating, exercise and family time.
Family time is an absolute minimum of four hours a day or 28 hours per week. This
leaves 20 hours for sleeping and eating and exercise. Quit all exercise. Then we have
say seven hours a week eating (rapidly, trying not to get indigestion), including food
preparation time. So we get about 13 hours sleep, or if we are lucky two hours sleep
each night.
Personal and Social Aims for Mathematics Teach-

ing
This is where I begin as a professional mathematics teacher. What do I aim for
in my students? What do I aspire to see develop within my students? How will I
achieve these goals?
What follows is a running list of ideas that need to be worked upon.
Start with philosophy —the beginning of the year is without a doubt the most
important time. Unless my students are prepared to enter each class with an
intent to learn and with an enthusiasm that rivals their love for music, sport
and arts, then I am defeated! So the start of the year has to be a comprehensive
series of lesson on spiritual attributes and virtues of education—all education,
not just mathematics, but the beauty of mathematics will be brought to the
fore.
Continue with rich lessons —any grand aims at getting students excited and
enthusiastic will be lost, and trust will erode, if the subsequent lessons are dull
and overly-technical or old-school. So lesson plans need to be developed that
expose students to rich mathematical experiences, allowing them to investigate
and explore. As a teacher I should intervene with technique lessons only in-
between times to help students make progress when they get stuck.
Provide goals —students can form their own learning goals eventually, but my
job will be to help them plan their year at the beginning and make sure they
revise their plans regularly. So again, at the start of the year my students
will begin personal study journals that chart their progress through the school
syllabus. They will identify their strengths and weaknesses and will allocate
their time on specific study topics accordingly. They will be accountable to
themselves. We will have a whole class preview of the syllabus
Provide feedback and structure —I want the students to feel that they are pro-
gressing and can (if they care to) ace their exams. To do this without sacrific-
ing the richness and complexity of the lessons I need to get students to keep
records of their own progress. They should be able to identify specific skills
required by the school curriculum and syllabus, and be able to “tick the boxes”
when they feel they have achieved technical mastery. But this will be inciden-
tal to the main lessons throughout the year. Individual lessons or sequences
of lessons can still be devoted to sustained study of a particular topic, and
students will have clear guidance on the learning goals and outcomes expected
to be achieved.
References 103
Provide meaningful tests —tests designed to reveal understanding and not just
technical mastery. Also, I want my students to test themselves at their own
pace, so I will use self-assessment and peer-assessment heavily. I will also make
sure that ipsative and formative assessments are heavily used, so that students
see tests as useful and fun rather than stressful and drudgery. I will need
to design many more tests than the typical school teacher, for differentiated
learning and variety, as well as for student interest and satisfaction. The tests
will need to be ready for whenever a students chooses to do them.
The road to the quality teaching that I desire to achieve will be long and hard.
I cannot tell now how long it will take to traverse.
The critical thing I keep coming back to is the preparation of the students. The
need to imbue them with a love of learning and a love of mathematics is the primary
challenge, and in some sense the final goal. All the initial effort therefore has to
go up front at the beginning of the year. I need to spend as much time as it takes
warming the students to the virtues, spiritual attitudes, and culture that I expect
in my classes.
I think that after one year of teaching I should have about 50% of one topic for
one year level just about fully planned to high quality. That only leaves about 3×10
topics ×9 21 year levels worth of lesson units to perfect. In other words, about 1.5%
of my goal might be achieved in my first year. So I need to accelerate this as the
years progress to get anywhere near full quality teaching before I die.
However, there is a more hopeful view. If this primary and final goal can be
achieved early in any given year, and suppose it can can be done within a month for
any class of students, then 90% of the effort required for quality teaching is done!
For it is not the individual lessons that need to be formed, rather it is the trust
and confidence of the students that makes a great lesson. So the goal is clear. The
expert quality lesson plans can come slowly as I develop resources. The true quality
of my lessons will be 90% in the hands of my students. So this is what I will give
my life blood for. Nothing short of wholeheartedly inspiring my students, winning
their confidence and setting them off on their own spiritual journey in mathematics
and life.
References
Begg, A. (2009). Learning tasks: More than content. In R. Averill & R. Harvey
(Eds.), Teaching secondary school mathematics and statistics: Evidence-based
practice (Vol. 1, pp. 11–21). Wellington: NCER Press.
References 104
Chambers, P. (2008). Planning to teach a mathematics lesson. In Teaching mathe-

matics: developing as a secondary mathematics teacher (pp. 46–76). London:
Sage.
Ernest, P. (2000). Teaching and learning mathematics. In V. Koshy, P. Ernest,
& R. Casey (Eds.), Mathematics for primary teachers (pp. 3–9). London:
Routledge.
F. Van Dyke, & White, A. (2004). Making graphs count. Mathematics Teaching,
188 , 42–45.
Frankcom, G. (2009). Investigative mathematics: Discovering the teacher math-
ematician inside. In R. Averill & R. Harvey (Eds.), Teaching secondary
school mathematics and statistics: Evidence-based practice (Vol. 1, pp. 11–
21). Wellington: NCER Press.
Goos, M., Stillman, G., & Vale, C. (2007). Developing mathematics understanding.
In Teaching secondary school mathematics: Research and practice for the 21st
century (pp. 21–29). Australia: Allen & Unwin.
Goulding, M. (2004). Planning and evaluating lessons. In Learning to teach math-
ematics in the secondary school (pp. 99–127). Great Britain: David Fulton
Publishers.
Hofstadter, D. (1979). Gödel, escher, bach: An eternal golden braid. Basic Books.
Lawrence, A. (2009). Algebra Word Problems: A challenge for teachers and stu-
dents. In R. Averill & R. Harvey (Eds.), Teaching secondary school mathemat-
ics and statistics: Evidence-based practice (Vol. 1, pp. 113–130). Wellington:
NCER Press.
Lee, C. (2001). Using assessment for effective learning. Mathematics Teaching, 175 ,
40–43.
Linsell, C. (2009). Algebra: Students’ misconceptions and strategies for solving
equations. In R. Averill & R. Harvey (Eds.), Teaching secondary school math-
ematics and statistics: Evidence-based practice (Vol. 1, pp. 101–112). Welling-
ton: NCER Press.
Neyland, J. (1994). Designing rich mathematical activities. In J. Neyland
(Ed.), Mathematics education: A handbook for teachers (Vol. 1, pp. 106–122).
Wellington: Wellington College of Education.
Neyland, J. (2009). Mathematical facts and ideas: Which are which? In R. Averill
& R. Harvey (Eds.), Teaching secondary school mathematics and statistics:
Evidence-based practice (Vol. 1, pp. 79–88). Wellington: NCER Press.
Polya, G. (1945). How to solve it. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Swan, M. (2000). Making sense of algebra. Mathematics Teaching,, 171 , 16–19.
Watson, A., & Mason, J. (2006). Variation and mathematical structure. Mathemat-
ics Teaching Incorporating Micromath, 194 , 3–5.

Math-Epol338 Course Notes - Mathematics Curriculum Study

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Math-Epol338 Course Notes - Mathematics Curriculum Study

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

EPOL338 Course Notes

Online Collaboration Team

July 18, 2010

c 2010, Blair M. Smith

Introduction and Warm-up Activities 7

1 Module 1—An Introduction to Mathematics Teaching 13

2 Module 2—Introduction to Mathematics Lesson Planning 32

Comments on “Designing Rich Mathematical Experiences” . . . . . . 33

3 Module 3—The Numeracy Development Project 42

4 Module 4—Number and Algebra 43

5 Module 5–1 Algebra 53

Using Technology to Teach Algebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

6 Pedagogical Content Knowledge Study—Complex Numbers 72

Reflections for Week Two of Epol-338 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Reflections on School Mathematics

Describe a typical mathematics lesson from secondary school.

Describe a mathematics lesson you have enjoyed.

My answer. Fourth form mathematics teacher discusses knots. We go outside to

What were some of the key features of that lesson?

My answer. The aforementioned excitement and novelty of something that did

Describe a mathematics lesson that you did not enjoyed.

My answer. I vaguely recall a seventh form lesson introducing either summations

Why do secondary school students study mathematics?

• They love the subject.

• They are good at the subject.

• They need to know a bit of mathematics to do well in other subjects or their

• They want to impress someone with their mathematical ability.

• Because their friends are studying mathematics.

• Because someone else they like is studying mathematics.

• Because their parents force them to.

What did you like about mathematics at school?

My answer. It was challenging yet easy to master. Objectives were reasonably

What did you dislike about mathematics at school?

My answer. Getting incorrect answers to problems. Making silly mistakes like

3. Give an estimate of the cost of 320 booklets at $5.70 each.

Notes on question 1. Immediately I figure I will have to add 1 43 of time to the

An alternative method might be to divide 85 by 10 first, then multiply by 3. Or

Thoughts on the Way Mathematics Could be Taught

separates sub-topics and disciplines. They even attempt to relate mathematics to

Interviews with Adults—Thoughts on School Math-

Task 1.1—Attributes of a Quality Mathematics Pro-

“What are the features of a quality school mathematics programme?”

In addition to the suggested two qualities here are some others.

• Stimulating student interest in the aesthetic pleasures of mathematics and it’s

• Providing opportunities for mathematical discovery and original thought.

• Gradually increasing student mathematical literacy to a high level, starting

• Exposing students to the accessible cutting edge of mathematics (this might be

• Recreate mathematical history—see if students can rediscover already proven

• New ideas/concepts continue on from prior learning so students can build on

• Creative thinking is promoted—Students have a chance to adapt and apply

• There is continued assessment of knowledge that aligns with curriculum and

• Learning is connected to students lives and cultures to assist with engagement

• Recognizing and catering to a varying level of abilities and rates of progression.

• Allow adequate practice time for internalization of concepts.

• Encouraging multicultural interactions in the class when teaching some topics

• Practical tasks should be included in the program, as many as possible (in-

• On going assessment to inform teaching and learning.

• Regular and meaningful feed back to encourage students’ engagement towards

Task 1.2.1: Curriculum Achievement Objectives

AO, Number and Algebra: Understand operations on fractions, decimals, per-

• Start with a selection of advertising leaflets/newspapers which promote sales

AO, Statistics: Use simple fractions and percentages to describe probabilities.

AO, Geometry and Measurement: Level 5. Measurement. Find the perime-