Bring on the Maths is an incredibly flexible resource that can be used to assess learning and inform future planning and teaching. It can be used as a starter or plenary activity, during the main section of a lesson, or as a series of homework tasks to track students’ progress during the year. The key to its success is that it provides great learning opportunities through interactive discussion. Below are some ideas for using the resource effectively in your classroom.
Starter or Plenary Activity
Students can work in groups to try and find all the solutions (in the example below there are 8 solutions).
The teacher picks a group to start offering solutions - Ideally, answers should be justified. Each correct answer results in a letter. Points can be awarded if you want to use the activity as a competition.
The group continues until an incorrect answer is given (a cross appears!!) or until they have exhausted their collection of answers. Either way, the next group picks up the challenge to try and solve the problem.
A group has to offer at least one solution before. The group who finds the last letter has the first opportunity to solve the anagram to reveal the key word linked to the Key Objective - a time limit of 15 seconds to solve the anagram is sensible! If they can not solve the anagram, it is passed on to the next group and so on.
Starter or Plenary Activity - A slightly quicker version
Students work in small groups to try and find all the solutions in an allotted time, say 5 minutes. When the time is up (or if a group has found all the solutions within the time), the group with all, or most, of the solutions explains their choices - No answer should be accepted without a correct justifcation - guessing is not allowed!!
The beauty of both these versions is that students must question why an answer is wrong. This really identifies mistakes and misconceptions for the teacher to rectify in future teaching.
Worksheet version - Main Activity
Pairs or individuals have a worksheet that they can write on. They have to mark each cell with either a tick or cross. When they are done the teacher informs them how many (out of 12) are correctly labelled but, crucially, not which ones are correctly labelled. If they do not have 12 out of 12 they enter a problem-solving exercise to work out which cells need altering, and why. As the activity draws to a close the teacher can put the board up at the fromt of the class, run through justified answers and still finish with the anagram puzzle as a shorter plenary.Worksheet version - Improving classroom management
If social skills are not the strongest group characteristic, the board can be issued as a worksheet and students work on an individual basis. This has proven to be a highly effective strategy with classes who have regular latecomers or a way of settling a class - especially if your lesson is period 5 or 6 in the day and mental truancy is almost inevitable!!Homework - Formative Medium Term Assessments and Summative Long Term Assessments
Formative Medium Term - The board can be issued as a homework sheet and marked. Any answers deemed to be ‘incorrect’ by the student must be justified by having the correct answer written in the cell. This feedback informs future planning and teaching.Summative Long term - The record sheet below can be used to track student’s performance against the Key Objectives for the Year. Each board has 12 questions aimed at a Key Objective/National curriculum level; e.g. Y7 - Probability - level 5. If 10 or more are correct then 5+ is recorded, 7 or 8 or 9 then 5 is recorded and 6 and below records 5-. Using the traffic light system of green for +, amber for blank and red for -, gives a highly effective tracking document.
