Yes, Merely Why?

I'm certain you've already heard almost Ed Southall's novel majority 'Yes, But Why? Teaching for Understanding inward Mathematics'. It was published less than a calendar month agone too is already on its tertiary impress run. It has been incredibly good received yesteryear both main too secondary teachers - everyday I run into tweets almost how useful it is.

I yell back a twain of years agone when Ed (@solvemymaths) get-go had the thought of writing this book. There was no bailiwick cognition handbook for trainee maths teachers - it was a clear gap inward the market. By writing one, Ed has provided something that maths pedagogy badly needed - an expertly written reference manual for mathematics teaching.

People assume that a maths grade is sufficient bailiwick cognition for teaching secondary mathematics, simply there's a lot to a greater extent than to it than that. In maths, bailiwick cognition includes knowing mutual misconceptions, effective teaching approaches, choice methods, underlying concepts, links betwixt topics, interesting maths facts too stories, too more... Even the most experienced maths teachers with high levels of subject-specific expertise tin develop their cognition further.

Since reading Ed's majority I've noticed a subtle shift inward my teaching style. For instance I establish myself excitedly talking to my Year xi course of instruction almost the departure betwixt an ellipse too an oval. They were surprisingly fascinated - 1 of them was actually pleased with himself when he spotted the link to the discussion ovary. And inward a recent lesson on geometric proof, I talked for a land almost Euclid - it was the longest menstruum of quiet I've had from that class! They truly seemed enthralled. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 highly knowledgeable instructor is confident too engaging. That's the sort of instructor I desire to be.

In this post I've featured a few extracts from 'Yes, But Why? Teaching for Understanding inward Mathematics' to give you lot an thought of why it's worth buying.

Statistical Graphs
Histograms are actually unpopular with GCSE teachers. I'm a statistician too fifty-fifty I acknowledge that I don't await forrad to teaching this topic. Ed explains real clearly why histograms role frequency density instead of frequency - inward fact I project design to role his examples side yesteryear side fourth dimension I instruct it.

Ed's majority tells me that histograms were developed yesteryear English linguistic communication mathematician Karl Pearson inward around 1910. This is of personal involvement to me because Karl Pearson was the human being who founded the world's get-go academy statistics subdivision at University College London inward 1911 (the real same subdivision where I did my statistics grade xc years later).

Given that maths teachers ofttimes discovery statistics hard to instruct (or even, dare I say, non enjoyable...), I intend that the statistics chapter of Ed's majority volition live on incredibly useful. In the subdivision on pie charts, Ed shares a goodness instance of a useless pie chart, too encourages teachers to utter over the pros too cons of each type of statistical graph with students.

Teacher Tips
Practical tips characteristic regularly throughout the book. This tip regarding expanse is real sensible - bespeak students to discovery the expanse of a parallelogram when alone the base of operations too perpendicular meridian convey been provided seems a lilliputian silly.

Deriving y = mx + c
I'm guilty of telling students that the equation of a remove occupation is y = mx + c without telling them why. If they know that slope is 'change inward y ÷ change inward x', too hence it's pretty elementary to derive y = mx + c, every bit shown below.

This is obvious, if you lot halt too think, yet I've never shared this with my students. I gauge the work is that for teachers, right from twenty-four hr menstruum 1 of their training, in that place is no fourth dimension to halt too think.

Measurements
The majority features a listing of odd units of measure, too lots of other wonderfully geeky mathematical trivia. I beloved this stuff!

'Yes, But Why? Teaching for Understanding inward Mathematics' is informative, witty, enjoyable too incredibly useful. It's available to purchase now. If you're all the same undecided, you lot tin preview the get-go chapter here. Let me know what you lot think.