Synopses & Reviews
'This is an excellent book which no mathematics department should be without. Its 50 self-contained lessons offer amusing, fascinating and mathematically worthwhile tasks which are supported by excellent teacher notes. Most books are not worth recommending but this is different.' Paul Andrews, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education, Universityof Cambridge ‘This collection is a ‘must have' for every teacher who wants to inspire students to be excited by mathematics, yet not stray too far from core topics. Every lesson contains key insights into mathematics, using ideas, links and contexts which are mysterious, fun, silly, bizarre, practical and historical.' Anne Watson, Reader in Mathematics Education, University of Oxford ‘When the occasion demands it, most maths teachers can pull out an all-singing-all-dancing lesson or two that are more or less guaranteed to go well. These can come in handy for job interviews or during inspections. But such lessons tend to require an exceptional amount of preparation or are excessively demanding to deliver and are not sustainable in the real world, where a teacher may have to teach eight or more lessons in a day. For most of us, normal teaching life probably exists nearer the other end of the maths lesson spectrum, with relatively routine expository lessons. This sort of lesson requires little preparation and is easy to teach, but tends to be uninspiring for learners and unsatisfying for the teacher.The fifty lessons in this book aim somewhere in between these two extremes: they require only a few minutes' preparation time yet, I hope, rise above the commonplace. They are the sort of lessons you could teach eight of in a day, rather than eight of in your career!' From the introductionRelated resources can be found at the companion website www.50maths.com.
Synopsis
A complete collection of 50 instant mathematics lessons that require little effort in preparation time and are perfect for busy teachers.
Synopsis
'This is an excellent book which no mathematics department should be without. Its 50 self-contained lessons offer amusing, fascinating and mathematically worthwhile tasks which are supported by excellent teacher notes. Most books are not worth recommending but this is different.' Paul Andrews, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education, Universityof Cambridge
‘This collection is a ‘must have' for every teacher who wants to inspire students to be excited by mathematics, yet not stray too far from core topics. Every lesson contains key insights into mathematics, using ideas, links and contexts which are mysterious, fun, silly, bizarre, practical and historical.'
Anne Watson, Reader in Mathematics Education, University of Oxford
‘When the occasion demands it, most maths teachers can pull out an all-singing-all-dancing lesson or two that are more or less guaranteed to go well. These can come in handy for job interviews or during inspections. But such lessons tend to require an exceptional amount of preparation or are excessively demanding to deliver and are not sustainable in the real world, where a teacher may have to teach eight or more lessons in a day. For most of us, normal teaching life probably exists nearer the other end of the maths lesson spectrum, with relatively routine expository lessons. This sort of lesson requires little preparation and is easy to teach, but tends to be uninspiring for learners and unsatisfying for the teacher.The fifty lessons in this book aim somewhere in between these two extremes: they require only a few minutes' preparation time yet, I hope, rise above the commonplace. They are the sort of lessons you could teach eight of in a day, rather than eight of in your career!'
From the introduction
Related resources can be found at the companion website www.50maths.com.
Synopsis
'This is an excellent book which no mathematics department should be without. Its 50 self-contained lessons offer amusing, fascinating and mathematically worthwhile tasks which are supported by excellent teacher notes. Most books are not worth recommending but this is different.' Paul Andrews, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education, Universityof Cambridge
‘This collection is a ‘must have' for every teacher who wants to inspire students to be excited by mathematics, yet not stray too far from core topics. Every lesson contains key insights into mathematics, using ideas, links and contexts which are mysterious, fun, silly, bizarre, practical and historical.'
Anne Watson, Reader in Mathematics Education, University of Oxford
‘When the occasion demands it, most maths teachers can pull out an all-singing-all-dancing lesson or two that are more or less guaranteed to go well. These can come in handy for job interviews or during inspections. But such lessons tend to require an exceptional amount of preparation or are excessively demanding to deliver and are not sustainable in the real world, where a teacher may have to teach eight or more lessons in a day. For most of us, normal teaching life probably exists nearer the other end of the maths lesson spectrum, with relatively routine expository lessons. This sort of lesson requires little preparation and is easy to teach, but tends to be uninspiring for learners and unsatisfying for the teacher.The fifty lessons in this book aim somewhere in between these two extremes: they require only a few minutes' preparation time yet, I hope, rise above the commonplace. They are the sort of lessons you could teach eight of in a day, rather than eight of in your career!'
From the introduction
Related resources can be found at the companion website www.50maths.com.
Table of Contents
Introduction1 A Prime Example of A Code2 A Single Fold3 A Single Fold Again4 Benford's Law5 Can We Play A Game?6 Catch 227 Colourful Expressions8 Coordinate Transformations9 Digital Roots10 Dot To Dot11 Every Number From One Letter12 Every Possible Answer13 Farey Sequences14 Fermi Questions15 Fibonacci Grids16 Fractional Dice17 Happy Days18 Harshad Numbers19 I Don't Believe It!20 If A Tree Falls In A Forest ...21 In The Money22 In The Money Again23 It's Snowing!24 Lattice-Point Triangles25 Logarithmic Spirals26 Macfarlane's Law27 Meanness28 Ninety-Nine Zillion Gazillion29 Odd One Out30 One Of Our Vertices Is Missing!31 One Straight Cut32 One Thousand Dice33 One-Hundred-And-Ten Percent34 Optical Illusions 135 Optical Illusions 236 Pieces of Chocolate37 Playing At Transformations38 Round The Back39 Shapeshifters40 Sticky Polygons41 Striking Angles42 Switching Switches43 That Wheeling Feeling44 The Bear's Ring45 The Time Is ‘Right'46 Three Squares And A Triangle47 Timber!48 Time To Reflect49 Tricky Triangles50 Twenty-Four Square CentimetresBibliography