Author Archives: Cathy Smith

Generalising in Mathematics by Philip Higgins     One of the most revealing aspects of ME625 and ‘Developing Thinking in Algebra’ (Mason et al 2012) is that algebra is the search for the general rule and that this generality can … Continue reading →

Developing Thinking in Learning and Doing Geometry.   You might have thought the title of this blog is unnecessarily complicated! It is a hybrid of the names for the current Open University geometry module (Developing Thinking in Geometry) and the … Continue reading →

One of the lockdown conversations that has stuck in my mind was with a colleague whose 8-year old does not really want to go back to school. One of his reasons is a tribute to her homeschooling arrangements: he has … Continue reading →

Rebecca Would is  a year 12 work experience student who has visited the Maths and Stats department of the OU. She interviewed Karen Vines, a senior lecturer in statistics, to find out about her and her work Maths and Stats students at the … Continue reading →

Rebecca Would is a sixth-form work experience student who visited the Maths and Stats department of the OU and supported the School Maths Conference. This is her report. In July the OU ran a maths conference in conjunction with some … Continue reading →

This blog is part of a conversation between Cathy Smith, Ruth Edwards and  Jayne Webster, discussing a ‘mastery approach’ lesson. We have taken some topics from the conversation: setting a context, careful choice of language, different representations, small steps  and reasoning. … Continue reading →

There is a question in a recent Foundation level GCSE paper that asks: How would you go about this question? I can think of three ways. I could set up algebraic expressions for the length and width. I could draw … Continue reading →

In his famous book ‘The Descent of Man’ and as part of a discussion on the sense of beauty Charles Darwin commented: “The eye prefers symmetry or figures with some regular occurrence”. (Darwin, 1887, p. 93). In mathematics the definition … Continue reading →

On January 16th the Mathematics and Statistics department at the Open University hosted a talk by Dr Clare Lee on mathematical resilience. The construct of mathematical resilience can help teachers to support learners of mathematics to develop the resilience to overcome barriers … Continue reading →