Whole Staff Algebra

As you may be aware from my twitter feed last week, I rather foolishly vounteered to do some maths with the whole staff today. There was a reason for this. In the past we've done starters as part of sessions that involved cutting and sticking poetry, and dnigbats - more word games. As a department we felt that we should be able to come up with some maths that was accessible to the whole staff.

I got my plan as a result of the most recent subject leader day - a session on algebraic thinking. My cut down version of the NCETM slideshow is above.

What Went Well. Although I only had 5 minutes, the staff engaged quickly. I didn't do much different to I would with a class - just faster! There was some interesting debate, and I could see people asking questions of their neighbours. When I gave my answer (deliberately wrong) of 40, people were confident enough to call me wrong (although interestingly less confident than students are of calling me wrong!). My final challenge slide went down well, and I had an email within a few minutes of finishing speaking (from an AHT's iPhone!).

Even Better If. I'd have liked a little longer. Mainly I'd have liked longer to discuss wrong and right answers, and ways of counting. Obviously with a class I would have!

Outcomes. From discussions with other staff (not just maths) including SLT and other Middle Leaders I think more people may volunteer to run quick sessions on TD days. Our head of Languages has said she may do some Russian or Latin (Gove would be so proud).

Was it worth it. Yes - without a doubt. It raised the idea of Algebraic thinking (as opposed to simply doing algebra) with all staff - maths and all. It was also a different way to do a bit of learning on a TD day.