So compared to many other teachers I'm relatively new to live lessons. Thankfully the expertise of maths teachers on Twitter is already immense. Tweets about live lessons are constant and amazing, with teachers all over the world giving each other practical advice and inspiration. I thought it might be helpful to share some of that advice here for my readers who aren't on Twitter. I'm not featuring the well-known websites here - we are very lucky that there are absolutely loads for maths (Hegarty Maths, Dr Frost, Corbett Maths, MyMaths, Mathigon, MathsWatch, MathsPad, White Rose, Times Table Rockstars, Desmos and so on). Here I'm featuring tools and websites that might be less well-known. This should give you a starting point to investigate further if you are looking for a particular solution for your online maths lessons.
I don't work in a Google school but if I did then I would make use of @Philmaths314's free Self Marking Google Sheets. As the name suggests, these are sheets that mark themselves. The site is very easy to use: choose a sheet, create your own copy and then assign to your pupils. When they input answers, they get an instant score. I featured this resource in Gems 131.
Teachers - if you’ve got a few minutes to explore have a look at https://t.co/jl1gIE2BRE Easily turn a spreadsheet into flash cards, name picker, scavenger hunt, matching cards, bingo & loads more! @mrshawthorne7 @Arithmaticks @Mannermatics @mathsjem @beckyreedmaths @misschakera pic.twitter.com/08iXh2c18W
— Lucyjc1612 (@Lucyjc1612) January 7, 2021
In the first lockdown there were times when I wanted to set my students an independent practice task at the end of a topic, but they had already done all the tasks for that topic on Hegarty Maths. One option was to set them an exercise from a website like Corbett Maths, asking them work on paper and mark their own work. Another option was the use the free interactive tasks on the CIMT website. These tasks look a bit dated but still work beautifully. I love it that examples are provided before the exercises, so support is built-in for students. No login is required so access is quick and easy. The exercises are self-marking so students get instant feedback. The other thing I like is that there are no adverts. I can't stand it when there's advertising on student-facing websites. Here are the links:
I absolutley love @WhiteboardFi
— Kathryn MCCT 🙋🏼♀️ (@Arithmaticks) January 8, 2021
I love how I can see what the students are working on in (relatively) real time, and its helping me to address misconceptions straight away. I didn't think this was going to be possible teaching online. Bravo! 👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/Dngbxakizh
Loved using https://t.co/GtCd4hNPrh today. Made it feel like more of a classroom lesson! pic.twitter.com/h5MpDV1a4f
— Tomas Alley (@MrAlleyMaths) January 7, 2021
The online whiteboard tool on drfrostmaths.com is also very popular.
4. If you want to quiz students through Teams...
Good use of MS Quiz during live lesson to gather feedback from students. Posted in chat and watch the responses roll in LIVE...feedback given to students on incorrect answers using the whiteboard and in real time. Obviously, the quality of multiple choice question design is key pic.twitter.com/NlKLiaNXvL
— bryn cartwright (@wholehogmog1) January 8, 2021
I cannot recommend a ms forms enough. I do an exit quiz, it self marks, I leave a box at the end for comments. I get a nice overview of the class, it takes them 5 minutes, and it updates live for me to do quick AfL before setting them off on long tasks.
— Maths Locke (@mathsmuse) January 8, 2021
Today's MS Teams discovery...type @ forms (no space) into the chat/posts and you can generate an instant poll or quiz question. Love this! pic.twitter.com/TftFkUTxsX
— Helen Cox (@hcoxcrox) January 8, 2021
1/If you're using White Rose, I have made some check-ins in MS Forms for y7-10 for the next unit in the Spring term that you can duplicate to your area, modify if needed and set for your classes, answers are included. I will be making more...@mathsjem @mrbartonmaths @WRMathsSec
— Emma-Jane O'Neill (@EJONeducation) January 8, 2021
Feel free to add your own advice in the comments.
My husband works in a hospital so when I'm not in school looking after keyworker children, I'm home alone trying to homeschool my six year old and nine year old whilst simultaneously teaching lessons, responding to hundreds of messages and attending dozens of online meetings. Stressful is an understatement! Many teachers are struggling at the moment, so it's more important than ever that we support our colleagues during this difficult time.
Well done on surviving a killer first week. It will get easier!
Thank you-these are great! Those CIMT activities look fantastic.
ReplyDeleteI would also add
- Transum interactive activities eg
https://www.transum.org/software/SW/Starter_of_the_day/Students/Factorising.asp
Or teacher.desmos.com activities
Thank you! Both great resources.
DeleteThanks for this, it reinforces that we are doing ok, and the best we can! I am in the process of making lots of forms. Nit sure how to share them!
ReplyDeleteHi. When you're in the form, click on 'share' then where it says 'share as a template', copy that link. Then you can send that link to a colleague - when they click on the link, it lets them duplicate your form. So they can edit and use their own version, without changing your original form.
DeleteI'm a massive fan of whiteboard.fi - I've been using it ever since lockdown 1 and have found it by far the easiest whiteboard site for me and my students to use.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reminding me of the CIMT resources - I'll definitely be looking through those to see how they align with the lessons I'll be teaching over the next month.
Thanks for your comment - good to hear that whiteboard.fi has been tried and tested in the first lockdown.
DeleteI’ve used teachermade.com this week. You can upload pdfs to create online worksheets, which are self marking. It allows you to then give feedback and reopen so students can have another go.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! Thank you. I’ve not heard of that.
DeleteMy school uses teams and we are exploring using classnotes with our classes. We snip the lesson slides from ppt then put them in a classnote. You can distribute to your whole class and other classes as well. The students can type on the classnote and can use a pen tool. It saves automatically and as a teacher you can review the work. You can write on the work or leave voice recorded messages. Our students seem to be engaging with this.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, thank you. I've not heard of this approach. I'm a bit cautious of committing to checking students' written work because it's so time consuming to do online, though I agree that giving students personal feedback is great for engagement.
DeleteThanks for these tips. Jo, I’m interested that you say you use a pen mouse to write on the slides. I’d read they were as inaccurate as using a mouse. Have you found one that allows you to be accurate and legible?
ReplyDeleteI’ve not found that at all. It’s not perfect writing, but definitely legible, and way better than when I try to do it with a mouse. And it improves with practice. For me, writing on slides is so important - typed, animated solutions are so time consuming to create and don’t have quite the same impact as live modelling. I bought the mouse pen in the first lockdown - it was around £40 - a worthwhile investment!
DeleteThank you Jo - you may just have saved me - this is really helpful support.
ReplyDeleteReally glad it's helpful.
DeleteThanks Jo, some really useful tips. I bought a graphics tablet and for me it was a game changer! To be able to write straight onto powerpoint etc was great. You don't need the most expensive wireless ones if your planning on being tied to your computer.
ReplyDeleteAgree - I feel that writing by hand is so important in maths - probably more so than other subjects.
DeleteThese are all awesome. One of the things I found amazing to add to PowerPoints was the Pear Deck add on - it also works with Google slides. Students could just work through slides at their own pace after been taught the theory, I was able to see all of their responses and I was able to give feedback that they could respond to.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! Thank you.
DeleteBen Gordon has shared a video on how to use Whiteboard.fi:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.loom.com/share/c0e48cb76ef54140988810b0b6692f94
https://learn.desmos.com/create
ReplyDeleteIt is a game changer for me how quick it is to create bespoke tasks on Desmos and the options you have when doing this and then how useful these are to provide students a way of contributing answers and then offering a mechanism to monitor these response whilst student work on their response during live lessons was an improvement on my attempts to do this simply using Microsoft Forms.
You can use a egg timer for math quizzes. One option is to use textbook exercises to teach vital math skills etc and devise weekly fun quizzes based on them for each student. Another good way is to make up entire math worksheets using either paper or on a Microsoft Word document in advance then print them out to hand out in class. A series of puzzles is a really good idea too. Other ideas include math games etc. For lesser able students, pictures may help in addition for starters.
ReplyDeleteHi Jo
ReplyDeleteThanks for the article. I created a form for Angles and Trigonometry which I taught would share for anyone that wants to duplicate. Answers are included.
https://forms.office.com/Pages/ShareFormPage.aspx?id=24d0Rvyl2EioI9IjnqyITnxfGqgNxiNArzzQaf-LTUpUMFkwWTdSQkkwVkNRMjlJVzE5TjJWUFRQTC4u&sharetoken=O1KWmUrgAQ3mGoHTxSDi
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