Teaching notes by
- These Web pages were designed to use Internet Explorer for Windows version 6.0. I hope these pages work for many other browsers, but they are un-tested.
- If you visit each of the pages on this web-site, saving them to your favourites and selecting to make them available offline, you can then use these resources even when you are not connected to the internet. In Internet Explorer, you can set to work in Offline Mode by clicking 'Work Offline' under the 'File' Menu.
- The Practice pages give you much control over the complexity of the questions generated. Click on the Help button in the relevant page to discover what the options do. Note that the questions are then generated RANDOMLY depending on the options you set. This gives an inexhausable supply.
- The Demonstration resources are not necessarily very useful on their own. Don't expect them to replace what you already do. Their main strength is to summarise what you might do with traditional descriptions. Some demonstrations, like the circle one, will only help with part of the story.
- The practice pages can be used in many different ways. Develop your own uses, but consider developing students' ability to solve problems mentally (particularly good for double brackets). Try working in short bursts; Give a short amount of time, after which you can go through the top two in detail, and then just give answers to the rest. This differentiates for different speeds of pupils, whilst keeping the class together (Most of these skills benefit from unlimited practice and an increase in speed and accuracy, so this seems a good way to differentiate in this case). Doing this, you can gradually increase the complexity of the questions for everyone. Use these pages at times of revision or as quick starters to check skills are remembered correctly. A mixture of fraction questions for example can check students are not getting muddled up.
- The Countdown game is similar to the numbers part of the popular Television Gameshow. Can be used again and again as a self-differentiating mental starter. I set a time (usually of 3 minutes), and the students see how many they can get. Once students are familiar with what they are doing, it can be a very quick way to get their brains engaged. You can encourage correct use of brackets. I tend not to allow calculators. I rarely use the reveal feature; it is there more to encourage students to persevere, knowing there is a solution.
- Note that the settings you choose for each set of practice questions will be remembered until you close ALL web-browser windows. When you restart your web-browser, the next time you look at the practice questions, options will be back to the default.
- The pages have been sized to be optimal for screens of resolution 1024 by 768 pixels. I have done this because most projectors I have come accross use this resolution. If you have difficulty with making the pages look right, this may be something to investigate.
- I intend to gradually add to these pages. However, I intend (at the moment) to keep them concise. Though I have many other self-developed web-resources that I use in my teaching (litterally hundreds of pages), I do not intend to blindly put them here, as the difficulty I find with browsing the web, is not having time to go through everything to see what is worth investigating or using further. I therefore intend to spare you the same tediousness, by only putting here particularly useful and different resources I have developed. Do check back here occasionally though to see what I may have added.