Transition Year Maths

siobhd

I'm wondering if someone can direct/advise me....I'm a Science/Maths/Biology teacher and this year i've been given TY maths. I've no problem with this as i've taught for a few years now and am familiar with senior and junior cycles. However there's no TY maths book on the girls' booklist and i'm uncertain if one exists? If not can someone direct me to a website or some resource to make maths a bit more interesting for the year. I aim to cover 3/4 questions during the year but also try incorporate something "fun"! Any help will be much appreciated!

not_so_civil

Not sure about the text book, but theres a lot of online maths related games out there. Can't remember the websites off hand but google 'maths man' and you should find some good 1s

jonseyblub

siobhd wrote: »

I'm wondering if someone can direct/advise me....I'm a Science/Maths/Biology teacher and this year i've been given TY maths. I've no problem with this as i've taught for a few years now and am familiar with senior and junior cycles. However there's no TY maths book on the girls' booklist and i'm uncertain if one exists? If not can someone direct me to a website or some resource to make maths a bit more interesting for the year. I aim to cover 3/4 questions during the year but also try incorporate something "fun"! Any help will be much appreciated!

I'd suggest using some of your time in TY as a way of reviewing some of the problems they had in the Junior Cert so as to bring them up to speed for 5th Year. Try get them into the mindset of Project Maths where it'll be a lot more hands on for them. By the time they go into 5th Year they will be doing the full new syllabus which will be a massive change for them. One website i use which has tons of resources is http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/

Art Teacher

Your "mindset" that your refer to above is called 'Shiiling' i think.

jonseyblub

Art Teacher wrote: »

Your "mindset" that your refer to above is called 'Shiiling' i think.

Which is what exactly?

Don't bother explaining I googled it and here is what I came up with

"A shill, plant or stooge is a person who helps a person or organization without disclosing that he or she has a close relationship with that person or organization. Shill typically refers to someone who purposely gives onlookers the impression that he or she is an enthusiastic independent customer of a seller (or marketer of ideas) that he or she is secretly working for. The person or group that hires the shill is using crowd psychology, to encourage other onlookers or audience members to purchase the goods or services (or accept the ideas being marketed). Shills are often employed by confidence artists. Plant and stooge more commonly refer to any person who is secretly in league with another person or organization while pretending to be neutral or actually a part of the organization he or she is planted in, such as a magician's audience, a political party, or an intelligence organization (see double agent)."

It's amazing how you can read into my post in that way.A person came onto boards looking for advice and as a Maths teacher of 15 years I tried to help. From your name you are an art teacher so unless you also teach Maths have no real input to make in this discussion. I've no idea what your problem is but it's the second snide reply you've made about a post I've made today.
As far as I can see you are the type of person who nit picks posts and is looking for confrontation.

Art Teacher

Your minset is to recommend resources that that charges a hefty fee. These resources are GCSE material for a UK consumer.

jonseyblub

Art Teacher wrote: »

Your minset is to recommend resources that that charges a hefty fee. These resources are GCSE material for a UK consumer.

Have you actually visited the site? I tell you what just read the very top of the page where it says " a treasure trove of free Maths gems etc

So you are saying to me algebra in the uk system is different to the Irish one?

Art Teacher

No. You came into this forum creating an impression that you were interested in Transition Year maths, you advertised GCSE materials on a site that sold the materials at a hefty price .

jonseyblub

Art Teacher wrote: »

No. You came into this forum creating an impression that you were interested in Transition Year maths, you advertised GCSE materials on a site that sold the materials at a hefty price .

I'll ask you again to please look at the site.
I'll even give you a few links to it to help you.

http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/handlingdata.htm

http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/number.htm

http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/shape.htm

http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/algebra.htm

and there are tons of free videos on how to use certain maths software

All free resources which I have used and cost nothing

He has written books and I'm sure he is selling them on his site but I'm sure the OP like myself is able to avoid buying anything.

And all these resources are relevant to the irish curriculum


oh and one final thing i have taught TY Maths for the last 5-6 years and do know how difficult it is to get resources so I do have an interest. You on the other hand are an Art Teacher who can give no reasonable insight into the OP's problems.

caroline72

for fear of causing trouble because this is a UK site.......(!) tes.co.uk is really good,has an excellent search engine and brilliant presentations,worksheets etc etc all relevant to Irish curriculum.

Art Teacher

jonseyblub wrote: »

I'll ask you again to please look at the site.
I'll even give you a few links to it to help you.

http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/handlingdata.htm

http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/number.htm

http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/shape.htm

http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/algebra.htm

and there are tons of free videos on how to use certain maths software

All free resources which I have used and cost nothing

He has written books and I'm sure he is selling them on his site but I'm sure the OP like myself is able to avoid buying anything.

And all these resources are relevant to the irish curriculum


oh and one final thing i have taught TY Maths for the last 5-6 years and do know how difficult it is to get resources so I do have an interest. You on the other hand are an Art Teacher who can give no reasonable insight into the OP's problems.

I would avoid contact with this website.

jonseyblub

Art Teacher wrote: »

I would avoid contact with this website.

You would because you are an art teacher :rolleyes: but Maths teachers should definitely get any of the free resources that are there. TES is also an excellent site which also has lots of free resources

Toto Wolfcastle

Art Teacher if you have a problem with a post you report it and then wait for a mod to deal with it. You do not comment on-thread about it. You have taken this thread completely off-topic. Do not post in this thread again unless you can actually help the OP. If you do so you will receive an infraction. Do not respond to this warning on-thread.

Art Teacher

siobhd wrote: »

I'm wondering if someone can direct/advise me....I'm a Science/Maths/Biology teacher and this year i've been given TY maths. I've no problem with this as i've taught for a few years now and am familiar with senior and junior cycles. However there's no TY maths book on the girls' booklist and i'm uncertain if one exists? If not can someone direct me to a website or some resource to make maths a bit more interesting for the year. I aim to cover 3/4 questions during the year but also try incorporate something "fun"! Any help will be much appreciated!

Would you consider reflecting on your subject and your practice . How do you make it " fun" appears to be your question.

whiteandlight

TY Maths this year I would definitely use some time to catch up the students in areas from Project Maths they would not have done at JC. One in particular that you can easily make interesting and cross curricular is statistics and probability (Strand 1). For example:

Statistics: Have your students chose a topic that they would be interested in running a survey within their year group on. (Last year mine went with alcohol/tobacco use. Let them guide the learning. In my case, groups of 3/4 designed their own surveys and ran them on the control group (the class). Each presented their findings and any issues with the questions/results that they found. Then as a class they voted on the best questions to include in a survey on the full year group. They then ran the survey across the year. I worked with them to input the results into excel in the computer room and how to generate graphs. They each had to make an individual presentation at the end about their role in the project and three aspects of the results that interested them (to include mathematical information graphs, central tendencies etc.)
If you are working with an honours group you can then use the results of the same survey to move into probability e.g. the likelihood of any one student chosen at random having consumed alcohol. You get the drift.

There are any number of resources that can be used. One (as a teacher in a pilot school) that we have found invaluable for questions etc is plymouth maths http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/ Check out their resources section, there's whole books there.

I would also try and do as much of the practical work for maths as you can, for example bring students out to use clinometers. You can even have them make their own, google clinometer worksheet and make your own clinometer and you'll find plenty of free resources. Work on their constructions. Google difficult constructions if you have students who have done construction studies as they will fly ahead of the class here otherwise.

In a similar way I would work on the relationship between relative frequency and probability, particularly noting that as you increase relative frequency the value gets closer to probability. You can do this relatively easily in the classroom with cards, dice or coins etc. Split your students into groups. Have every student toss a coin 50 times recording the results. Have them compare the results within the group. Then tabulate them on the board. What should happen is that as you add in more and more groups the relative frequency gets closer and closer to the probability.

Anyways that just a few suggestions. Sorry the post was so long, I got a bit rambling lol

whiteandlight

Also be aware that the current TY students will be sitting the entire new syllabus in 5th year and you will not be able to cover "questions" as you have said in your post. This is very important, they are going out of their way to make sure that students learn the syllabus, not past papers.
Check out the new layout/type of questions at examinations.ie Look for the project maths papers from 2011. These are the closest to what your group will have for LC though bear in mind that Differentation will also have changed for your group so Paper 1 will not be laid out exactly like it is there.