RebelMaths

What are Goal Free Problems? I have recently been reading "How I wish I'd Taught Maths" by Craig Barton. I'm still not even half way through the book but it is full of great ideas. Very importantly these ideas are also backed up by research and Mr. Barton makes it very easy for readers to find the research in question. So today I tried something nearly new to me. I say nearly new because I have done something similar before but never had a name for it. In the past when students have been struggling with trigonometry problems I have always advised them to find out whatever they can and then see if that helps with the question. This is probably a simplified version of the goal free problem.The idea of the goal free problem is that there is no fixed 'answer' that students need to reach. Instead they explore the question and see what 'answers' they can come up with. Today's Goal Free Problem I decided to try it out today with a first year Busine

Promoting Discussion in Higher Education Mathematics. Over the last few years I have tried several different ways to incorporate group work and discussion in my Higher Education Mathematics classroom/lectures. Students don't instinctively love talking about maths! It takes a bit of work to set up some reason for students to get involved in mathematical discussion. I've tried the usual things: The basic "have a chat with your neighbour about that",The incentivised by fear "check your answers with you neighbour because I'll randomly pick someone to ask". The classic "think-pair-share". I've really enjoyed using the method from Peter Liljedahl's thinking classroom of using Vertical Non Permanent Surfaces (#VNPS). The rule I promote is that if you are writing on the board you can't write your own ideas, someone needs to tell you what to write. I find this works very well to promote discussions about interesting problems. This