So much better....

Today I was out of school all day long at a session aimed at Gifted and Talented children run by a few people who run this perfectably acceptable website. Some parts of the day were great, they introduced a topic on sequences and mapping in a slow methodical manner which really teased out the 'correct' answer from some students who weren't allowed to reveal the rule. They used different, more difficult numbers before encouraging students to write the rule algebraically themselves. I was really geared up for a great day.

This was followed by an hour long lecture where our year 8 children sat and listened to them.

WHAT???

Then they had 90 minutes to do an open ended investigation. Most of them did it for about 45 minutes with little help and weren't sure what to do next, as they were given no instructions they sat and talked to each other. Who could blame them.

Then an interesting part of the day, an hour long conversation about listing questions the students wanted to answer about straight line graphs. I thought this was great, really solid important pedagogy which made link between what they were doing and how 'real' mathematicians operate.

Again....another 90 minute investigation which they could get stuck into for 45 mins.

No real conclusion, no bringing together of results. I doubt there is one child who could say what they learnt today. That would have got a 3 in an ofsted observation.

I should have loved the session today, I think investigations and projects are great. I love giving students the opportunity to investigate their own questions. I also really like straight line graphs. I'm really good at them. what a wasted opportunity though. You can't just leave children with a bunch of questions and expect them to get on with it and find something very meaningful because they might only find something half meaningful. I'm sure our students have half an idea that one of the numbers has something to do with where the lines crosses one of the axis. I doubt they could be really specific about which number did what and why.

Why not formalise what was learnt, why not be a little prescriptive and tell them something after they've some so close to learn something for themselves. I think most of our children left feeling like they were bad at maths because they couldn't put the final piece of the puzzle together.

If the last piece doesn't quite fit, maybe it's better to hammer it in.