With the Covid-19 restrictions, we know that school, and in fact life for us all, is going to be a bit different this year and Maths Week will be too. The 15^th Maths Week Ireland will be going ahead from October 10-18, so please register your school as taking part at www.mathsweek.ie and read about our plans for Maths Week 2020.

Results for the GCSEs and A levels are already out in Northern Ireland. There was a lot of controversy and a lot of media interest in the awards, with students now being awarded the highest grade either predicted by their teacher or awarded officially. The Leaving Certificate results will be out in the South on September 7, and many are looking forward with interest to see what these bring. Hopefully, the system will be as fair as possible to the students.

In this newsletter, we will feature:
 

• Register for Maths Week 2020
• Plans for Maths Week 2020
• Maths Week Posters
• How to make a Maths Week Maths Trails
• What’s on?
• Maths in the Media
• Douglas Buchanan Maths Beyond the Textbook

Tá siad ar fáil anseo as Gaeilge freisin

Global Maths and Science Session: Super Stats

DCBEAGLE CHALLENGES

BEYOND THE TEXTBOOK – Maths Week Ireland
 
August 2020

Douglas Buchanan ~ dcbeagleb@gmail.com ~ www.dcbeagle.com ~ @dcbeagle1
  
Welcome to the new academic year.
 
Let us have an open-ended start to the year!
How many times in your career have you collected the marks of the mental test in the first week of an academic year?
Punch: “3 wrong miss.”
Judy: “7 wrong miss.”
The first approach to negativity towards maths! Would the atmosphere be different if the solutions are open ended or you do not mark anything “wrong”?
 
It is difficult to convince colleagues, parents and the inspectorate when they see examples in books not marked except for the “ticks”. My approach was to question the pupil about their error and in many cases asked them to do it again to receive a tick – not a “correction tick”. Other times I would ask them to do a similar example. Positive reinforcement.
 
Opening Minds with Open Ended Math Problems
“Noah saw 18 legs pass his office door. What could the animals be?”
 
In the detailed article in the website, Model Teaching, it covers the following topics:

• What are open-ended math problems?
• Why should I use open-ended math problems with my students?
• How do I incorporate open-ended math problems into my math instructional time?
• How do I make sure to provide students with open ended math problems during math each day?

 
There is also a booklet giving many examples of open ended problems
 
There is also a comprehensive guide of activities and investigations from the Hamilton Trust. If the activities are the property of the Trust they ask you and / or your school to subscribe. Many of the tasks are from other sources.
 
“Maths was my favourite subject today, Mummy, because I did not get anything wrong!!!”
 
Puzzle of the month
 
Buying turkeys
A man bought a number of turkeys at a cost of €60.00, and after reserving fifteen of the birds he sold the remainder for €54.00, thus gaining 1Oc a head by these. How many turkeys did he buy?
 
Numerical phenomena – divide 1 by 998 001
Using Calculator.net’s Big Calculator insert:
X = 1
Y = 998001
Precision: 5996 digits
Click on X / Y
What do you discover? More at the end of the newsletter.
 
Finland
Finland has one of the most successful education systems but what makes it so successful?
 
There are no standardised tests
From the age of six, students in the UK are tested to assess their academic capabilities. But in Finland, throughout the course of a child’s education, there is only one test that is mandatory -- the matriculation exam -- which comes at the end of vocational senior high school.
 
Homework isn’t as widely used
Statistically, Finland issues a lot less homework to students than most countries on earth. Though it is a myth that there is no homework at all, most of the education happens in the classroom. Which is, after all, where you would expect it to happen. This is built on a mutual trust between teachers, students and parents. Parents especially know that their kids are being taught by the brightest people in society. So they back whatever happens when their children are in the school environment. In Finland, home time is there to develop soft skills, gain life experience and foster close family bonds.
 
Source: Celsian Education
 
Video: Why Finland has the best education system in the world
 
Activity of the month
 
Use the digits 2, 0, 2 & 0 and any operations to make a value from 1 through to 100.
 
This is an ideal open question exercise and it could be a communal effort with pupils putting solutions on wall charts. There will always (I think!) be more than one algorithm for each value. Do take images of your charts and send them to me!
 
Website of the month - https://www.topmarks.co.uk/
This website has a comprehensive array of activities for all subjects in the curriculum and caters for the age range of 3 to 14 year olds.
 
Puzzle of the month solution
 
BUYING TURKEYS
The man bought 75 turkeys at 80c each, making €60.00. After retaining 15 he sold the remaining 60 at 90c each, making €54.00, as stated. He thus made a profit of 1Oc each on the 60 birds he resold.
 
Numerical phenomena – revisited
You will discover all the values from 1 to 999 are in numerical order except 998 is missing!
 
Maths Week Ireland – 10 to 18 October
We are all aware that the focus will be trying to give the best education in these unusual times and time is the essence. If you are looking for inspiration for maths week do visit the following websites or if you are desperate do contact me.
 
https://www.mathsweek.ie/2020/ ; https://nrich.maths.org/ ; https://dcbeagle.com/mathslinks.html ; http://www.murderousmaths.co.uk/ ; https://www.mathsisfun.com/