After some time off for Christmas, I am now back to Bukoba and ready to resume teacher training. I keep waking up around 6:00am thanks to the cockerel next door, who always makes it loud and clear when it’s time to start the day. I tried to convince my security guard to ‘take care of it’, but he said he only deals with snakes!
Home sweet home in California
Two days ago at 2:00am, I woke up for a very different reason – an earthquake. I put on my shoes and was ready to leave the house, but then realised I wasn’t wearing any trousers. Doh! Because it only felt like a small quake, I went back to bed. I figured the house is pretty solid anyway. Fittingly I found out that the area where I live is actually called ‘California’, so I shouldn’t be surprised!
'Standard 4' maths exam paper
Solving mysteries
My first task when I got back after the Christmas break was to solve a mystery. Albeit, an exam related mystery! In the picture below (admittedly not the best!), you can see a standard ‘level four’ maths paper from Tanzania.
Although they aren’t all visible, there are actually four columns. The first shows the question number, the second shows the exercise to be solved, the third is space to show workings and the final one is for the answer.
The mystery I have been trying to solve regards the working out space in column three. My question is, do students have to write down the official vertical method for addition, subtraction and multiplication as shown in the question column, or can they use any method providing it gives the correct result? I’ve been asking teachers, trainers and government officials, but so far I haven’t been able to get a definitive answer. And so, the mystery continues! I’ll keep you posted on progress.
Questions and jokes
In answer to an earlier question (is it possible to change (or better, expand) the teaching methods used by long-standing teachers?) my answer is “yes”. I believe that teaching cultures can, and do, change. However, for some reason, it is a very long process. Especially compared to other professions. I’m going to use a joke to prove this statement. It’s a bit of a long-winded one, so bear with me!
Like using a wheel in the stone age, it takes time to change teaching practices!
In 2020 a scientist invents a time machine and travels back to the year 1900, where she convinces a doctor and teacher to time travel with her to 2020. Once they land in the present, the scientist takes the doctor to a hospital and asks her to take care of some patients. Unfortunately, after looking at the equipment in the hospital, the doctor is forced to give up because she doesn’t know how to operate such modern machines. The scientist then takes the teacher to a classroom and asks her to teach a lesson. The teacher looks around, picks up some chalk, and carries on teaching in the same way she taught one hundred years before.
Long story short, it takes time to change teaching practises!
The perils of place value
I recently delivered a workshop to primary school teachers on how to teach place value (place value refers to the value of each digit within a number). The teachers were in unanimous agreement that most students don’t understand it. However, when I asked why the students find place value so challenging, the room fell silent.
Turning tables
My first activity was to turn the tables, and help the teachers become aware of the challenges which their students may face when learning place value. But rather than just telling them, I wanted the teachers to experience the same difficulties.
Planning lessons to teach the dreaded place value
I wrote the number 100010 on the board, and asked them to express the value of the first digit to the left in relation to the value of the second digit from the right. I realise this is tricky to explain in writing, but if you take the number 100010 - then the 1 on the left is 10,000 times the 1 on the right. I’m not sure how long it will take you to work this out at home, but it took them all quite a while in the training session! I then asked the teachers who had taken longest to explain what had delayed them. Most of them said it was difficult to remember the digits values, which changed according to their position. That was a real eureka moment for me!
Learning through play
We then went outside and played two games to explain place value. I learned them both when I was a boy scout. It’s amazing what you can remember from when you were a child!
I’m hoping that all the teachers will go back to their respective schools and use these games with their classes. As you’ll see from the video, they’re great fun – and would work really well with big groups of children.
It feels so weird to think that I only have a couple of months left of my placement. It has been such a wonderful experience and I am so surprised by how much we’ve managed to complete in such a short time.
My priority for the next few weeks will be working on my maths training manual and a programme document, so lots of writing on the horizon! I’ll explain more in my final update.
Thank you so much for your support again.
Ciao for now!
Andrea
