I recently organised an event in my school: ‘Mastering Maths Day’. The aim was to encourage further embedding of ‘mastery‘ activities in everyday maths lessons and also to boost enjoyment of the subject.
Mastery, in a nutshell, is developing a thorough and deep understanding of concepts – often this is achieved through well scaffolded activities and problem solving.
What was the structure of the day?
The week before the event, I explained the day at the staff meeting. I also gave out a home learning activity in which all of the pupils had to design their own maths game.
During the day itself, exciting puzzles and problems were completed in classes – please see the resource folder below (credit goes to NRICH from which I took/adapted some of the challenges). In the afternoon, I ran a ‘Maths Bee’. This was a competition, similar to a spelling bee, but with mental maths questions.
Tags: education • Mastery • Math • maths mastery • teaching ideas • Teaching Resources