Making Marking Manageable

After a long, fun and rewarding weekend away with year 9 students to develop their Numeracy and Literacy skills alongside general confidence, team building and social skills. I now have chance to write a blog about Maths Murder Investigations and where they can lead.

I first designed the interactive seating plan in my NQT year, 2012. I have since developed this through three different versions to the current version 3. Over ten thousand teachers have downloaded a version and use the interactive seating plan both within the UK and internationally.  It has gone from having to manually type all the information into just having to copy and paste data from your student information sheet.

 This blog post is the first in a series of articles about how I've developed literacy within Maths lessons and incorporated fun strategies to motivate the students.

For my first post I'm writing about a recent and developing idea, that I got from seeing the wonderful work of www.lendmeyourliteracy.com, (@LendingLiteracy). They have a great set up and have given creative writing a purpose. Students from across the country are able to become published international authors. Teachers and students can also comment and like other student’s stories from across the world.

Theory

Independent learning is buzz term that has been around for several years within education but what is it all about? Why are some students more independent than others and how can we as educators breed a culture of independence within our schools and classes? Banksy is of the opinion that “A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to” (Banksy). So, is it not our job as educators to tell them to be independent? Is being independent as easy as just being told to be?