Tag: confidence

How to develop fundamental abilities

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This post provides a few practical tips on how to develop fundamental abilities (i.e. the first level of the Maths ability pyramid), thus helping students to become more confident by increasing their awareness and fluency with the mental manipulation of objects and processes such as order, numbers, causes and consequences.

There is a double benefit in working on this development: not only does it help teenagers to focus and develop mental resources, but it does so by involving them in a series of lively exercises that look very much like collective games with relatively little Maths involved. In other words, developing fundamental abilities is both low-cost and high-benefit.Read More »

Stephen Hawking, the ultimate teacher

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This post is an ‘extension’ of the previous post concerning the Magic of Q&A beyond expectations.

Back in May 2015, thousands of people gathered at Sydney Opera House for a talk by Stephen Hawking. Appearing in 3D hologram form, beamed in from Cambridge University, the physicist was asked the following question by an audience member: ‘What do you think is the cosmological effect of Zayn leaving One Direction, and consequently breaking the heart of millions of teenage girls across the world ?’Read More »

The magic of Q&A beyond expectations

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It is always very stimulating when questions and answers in a Maths lesson suddenly go beyond all expectations.

This might sound like this is something that only happens exceptionally. Not so. In a class where a climate of questions and answers has been set in mutual trust, exceeding expectations happens almost every day.

In this post, I would like to show two such examples, one where my expectations as a teacher were exceeded, and another where a student improved his own conceptual understanding starting from a misconception – which was of great benefit to the whole class.Read More »

Three things your Maths students should not be afraid of

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For many students, Maths is not fun, it’s fright !

That is not necessarily what they will show in the classroom. When students experience difficulty in Maths, they might appear bored, annoyed, rebellious, ironic, puzzled, defiant, etc. but not afraid, because they are proud.

It’s adults that tell you how frightening the experience was when they were kids. Adults are not in the classroom anymore, they can let the fright out and even laugh about it.

But where does this ‘Maths fright’ really come from ?Read More »