Linda Pound - Teaching Mathematics Creatively

TEACHING MATHEMATICS CREATIVELY

This new and updated edition of Teaching Mathematics Creatively offers a range of strategies to enable trainee and practising teachers to take an innovative, playful and creative approach to maths teaching. It promotes creativity as a key element of practice and offers ideas to involve your students and develop knowledge, understanding and enjoyment.

Exploring fresh approaches, this text explains the role of play in bringing mathematics alive for children and teachers alike. It identifies the power of story-telling in supporting mathematical thinking, examines cross-curricular teaching and allows you to plan for teaching creatively. Imaginative ideas, underpinned by the latest research and theory, include:

learning maths outdoors make more noise, make more mess or work on a larger scale;

everyday maths making sense of the numbers, patterns, shapes and measures children see around them;

music and maths the role of rhythm in learning, and music and pattern in maths;

giant maths how much food do you include on a giant shopping list?

Stimulating and accessible, with contemporary and cutting-edge practice at the forefront, Teaching Mathematics Creatively includes a wealth of innovative ideas to enthuse teachers and enrich maths teaching. This book is an essential purchase for any professional who wishes to embed creative approaches to teaching in their classroom.

Linda Pound has great educational experience and has published extensively in the fields of learning and creative maths. She is an Early Years Education Consultant and a regular contributor to Nursery World.

Trisha Lee is Founder and Artistic Director of MakeBelieve Arts, a social enterprise offering innovative, high-quality theatre and education programmes to develop the creative potential of children aged 215, based in Deptford, London, UK.

THE LEARNING TO TEACH IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL SERIES

Series editor: Teresa Cremin, The Open University, UK

Teaching is an art form. It demands not only knowledge and understanding of the core areas of learning, but also the ability to teach these creatively and foster learner creativity in the process. The Learning to Teach in the Primary School Series draws upon recent research that indicates the rich potential of creative teaching and learning, and explores what it means to teach creatively in the primary phase. It also responds to the evolving nature of subject teaching in a wider, more imaginatively framed twenty-first century primary curriculum.

Designed to complement the textbook Learning to Teach in the Primary School, the well-informed, lively texts in this series offer support for student and practising teachers who want to develop more creative approaches to teaching and learning. Uniquely, the books highlight the importance of the teachers own creative engagement and share a wealth of research informed ideas to enrich pedagogy and practice.

Titles in the series:

Teaching English Creatively, 2nd Edition

Teresa Cremin

Teaching Mathematics Creatively, 2nd Edition

Linda Pound and Trisha Lee

Teaching Religious Education Creatively

Edited by Sally Elton-Chalcraft

Teaching Physical Education Creatively

Angela Pickard and Patricia Maude

Teaching Music Creatively

Pam Burnard and Regina Murphy

Teaching History Creatively

Edited by Hilary Cooper

Teaching Geography Creatively

Edited by Stephen Scoffham

Teaching Science Creatively

Dan Davies

TEACHING MATHEMATICS CREATIVELY

Second edition

Linda Pound and Trisha Lee

First published 2015

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2015 L. Pound and T. Lee

The right of L. Pound and T. Lee to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

First edition published by Routledge 2011

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Pound, Linda.

Teaching mathematics creatively / Linda Pound and Trisha Lee. 2nd edition.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-138-80054-0 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-138-80055-7 (pbk.) ISBN 978-1-315-71786-9 (e-book) 1. Mathematics Study and teaching (Secondary) 2. Curriculum planning. 3. Lesson planning. I. Lee, Trisha. II. Title.

QA11.P6325 2015

510.71 dc23

2014042837

ISBN: 978-1-138-80054-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-80055-7 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-71786-9 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman and Helvetica Neue

by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon

CONTENTS

Teresa Cremin

Over recent decades teachers working in accountability cultures across the globe have been required to focus on raising standards, setting targets, and delivering prescribed curricula and pedagogy. The language of schooling, Mottram and Hall (2009: 109) assert, has predominantly focused upon oversimplified, easily measurable notions of attainment, which they argue has had a homogenising effect, prompting children and their development to be discussed according to levels and descriptors, rather than as children, as unique learners. Practitioners, positioned as passive recipients of the prescribed agenda appear to have had their hands tied, their voices quietened and their professional autonomy both threatened and constrained. At times, the relentless quest for higher standards has obscured the personal and affective dimensions of teaching and learning, fostering a mindset characterised more by compliance and conformity than curiosity and creativity.

However, creativity too has been in the ascendant in recent decades; in many countries efforts have been made to re-ignite creativity in education, since it is seen to be essential to economic and cultural development. This impetus for creativity can be traced back to the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE, 1999), which recommended a core role for creativity in teaching and learning. Primary schools in England were encouraged to explore ways to offer more innovative and creative curricula (DfES, 2003) and new national curricula in Scotland also foregrounded childrens critical and creative thinking. Additionally, initiatives such as Creative Partnerships, an English government-funded initiative to nurture childrens creativity, inspired some teachers to reconstruct their pedagogy (Galton, 2012). Many other schools and teachers, encouraged by these initiatives, and determined to offer creative and engaging school experiences, have exercised the power to innovate (Lance, 2006). Many have proactively sought ways to shape the curriculum responsively, appropriating national policies in their own contexts and showing professional commitment and imagination, despite, or perhaps because of, the persistent performative agenda (e.g. Cremin