How I gained time as a math teacher

Practical mathematics is something all teachers want to do, but it can often be difficult to achieve. The number of hours for the subject is so small and the days off are so many.

MORE TIME: The article author was given more time, including through reverse teaching.

“ Exploration and problem solving” and “Modeling and applications” are two of the core elements that come with the Subject Renewal in Mathematics. The core elements are considered the most important content, and what students must learn in order to master and use the subject.” (Udir 2018)

These core elements are a great starting point for practical teaching in mathematics. But how? All subject teachers want their students to be able to apply the subjects they are working on in the real world, but unfortunately they often find themselves in a time crunch.

Watch animations about features at home

I myself have gained time by using flipped learning. Flipped learning is a form of teaching where students work on new subject matter at home, and then work on various types of tasks at school, such as practical mathematics.

Making films for students to watch has previously made flipped learning challenging for us teachers. Not only do we have to plan exciting lessons, we also have to film explanations. It sounds as attractive as crossing the Finnmark plateau in July wearing only a thin layer of honey!

I gave students at Vøyenenga School homework to watch finished animations about functions from the online resource Mathematics 8-10. In addition, they were given self-correcting exercises that checked their understanding.

Walked straight out of the classroom and filmed each other

The students came to school prepared, and we went straight out of the classroom because the students were supposed to present the relationship between distance and time for a student moving at variable speed as a situation description, table and graph. They had to film the student moving, then analyze the film and upload it to the Kunnskap.no app.

Core elements in practice

In this session, students had:

a) used mathematics to describe relationships,

b) applied mathematics to describe a practical situation,

c) explored how a graph can actually show the movement of a fellow student,

d) extracted and analyzed information,

e) been out of the classroom

I would never have made it through this teaching session if I had to spend 30 minutes in front of the board, where I would have only met about ⅓ of the students. Also, thanks to the finished animations, I didn't have to spend the planning time on making films for the students. Instead, I had time to plan good teaching.

Author: Jens Myklebost