Most Viewed Posts of 2016

I wrote 78 blog posts in 2016. That's an average of 1.5 per week. Here's a list of the ten posts that had the most views.

1. Classroom Photos - #mathscpdchat 

I wrote this post back in January to encourage people to take part in a Twitter chat about classroom displays, equipment and layout. I asked people to share photos of their classrooms because most of us like to have a peek at what's happening in other schools.

2. Divisibility Rules
My popular posts are normally about resources, but it makes me happiest when people read a subject knowledge post. In this post I talked about divisibility rules. These aren't taught as much as they should be. 

3. Classic Resources 
I was surprised to see a maths teacher on Twitter say they'd never heard of the Standards Unit. This prompted me to write a post about all the resources that I was taught about on my PGCE. It's really important that new teachers entering the profession know about these timeless classics.

4. GCSE 9 - 1 Revision Resources
In November I realised that teachers were struggling to help their students prepare for their mock exams because they felt that there was a lack of revision resources for the new GCSE. In this post I collated all the new revision resources that I was aware of - I will continue to add to this post over the coming six months.

5. A Level Revision Resources
Another popular post about revision - this one brings together exam preparation resources for A level students. It's a shame that it has a limited shelf life - most of the resources featured are designed specifically for the modular specifications, which are now coming to an end.

6. 5 Websites You Should Know... #1
My 'five websites you should know' series was well received. It was based on a presentation I did at a TeachMeet. I've written four out of the five posts so far, covering Corbett Maths, MrCarterMaths, MathsBot and MathsPad. 

7. Revision Clocks Galore
The revision clock idea originated from a geography teacher and was adapted by teachers in numerous subjects, including maths. This activity became very popular in the summer term. To help keep track of the huge number of maths revision clocks produced, I collected them all in one post.

8. Common Errors Made by Maths Teachers
A controversial post! After noticing a few misconceptions from trainee maths teachers at work, I wrote a post to discuss the fact that maths teachers sometimes get things wrong. We are all human after all! I was planning to crowd source a list of common errors and create a reference document for trainee teachers and NQTs. People are really sensitive about subject knowledge though, and after being accused of writing 'pedantic nonsense' I lost my enthusiasm for the idea. The post, and the extensive comments, are worth a read.

9. Five things you might not know about the new GCSE content #2 
10. Five things you might not know about the new GCSE content #1
My two most viewed posts of 2016 were about the new GCSE. The inspiration for these posts came from a tweet by Ben Ward. He spotted that graph stretches are no longer included in the GCSE 9 - 1 specifications, so I decided to find out if there were any other content changes that teachers might not know about. Across the two posts I featured ten bits of information that hopefully made teachers' lives a little bit easier. The popularity of the first post, which has currently had over 8,000 views, was probably due to the fact that Graham Cumming linked to it in one of his Edexcel Emporium emails.

I hope you found these posts helpful. They are my most viewed posts of 2016, though not necessarily the posts that I am most proud of - I will blog about those shortly!