MathsZest

Eeek, I’d been all prepared and printed out resources I had thought to share for speed dating at #mathsconf6, only to leave them on the printer at home. So next best thing I could think of was to get hubbie to take a couple of pics, email them to me and post about them on here. 

What I was thinking of sharing was a resources from another maths teacher that I had found extremely useful, and had shared with my department, for tackling problem solving, and the difficulties students have sometimes in getting started on a problem. 

Back in July I read this post from @mrlyonsmaths on his blog mrlyonsmaths.wordpress.com about problem solving and the lack of resilience in even starting at solving a problem. Mr Lyons suggestion was inspiring and I’ve used his resource as a basis for problem solving with my groups this year. 

  
This is Mr Lyons’ problem solving scaffold, with descriptors of each section. He’s generously made it available to use it/tweak as required on his blog, following link above. 

It’s a fab way of getting students started on a problem as to begin with they are rewriting the key points of the question. Highlighting is good when you recognise where you’re going to go next, but for the less confident pupils, thus actually gets them started on writing something, and then some maths just seems to lead on from there. 

These are just three examples of questions I’ve used the format for, for different year groups and abilities of students. 

So a big thank you and shout out to @mrlyonsmaths for giving some of my students an entry way into problem solving.