Planning For Teaching Gcse Mathematics With Mixed Attainment Groups

In the first edition of this seminal study, Larry Cuban presented the last century of American teaching as one of a stable teacher-centered pedagogy. Within this framework, Cuban explored how major school reform efforts to alter classroom teaching often resulted in modest shifts in pedagogy in elementary schools and even less change in secondary schools.Now, in this second edition, How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1890–1990, Larry Cuban returns to his pioneering inquiry into the history of teaching practice in the United States, responds to criticisms, and incorporates the scholarship of the last ten years. While not abandoning his basic thesis of the remarkable continuity in teacher-based instruction, Cuban now examines more closely the phenomenon of “hybrids” of student-centered and teacher-centered pedagogy, and finds many instances of classroom change sufficient to give pause to those who see futility in classroom reform. The author looks closely at socioeconomic contexts and the evolution of curriculum content. In the final chapter, Cuban directly assesses the implications of his work for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers. Historians, sociologists, and educators will also find powerful relevancy to their work, and the general reader will join in an exciting search for historical realities. “There are no bumper-sticker solutions to educational problems here, no election year gimmicks. Rather, this book presents the seasoned hopefulness and skeptical wisdom of a scholar-practitioner who gives us a better map of where we have been and a sense of where we might go.” —From the Foreword by David Tyack

This book is about the promotion of all-attainment teaching in the mathematics classroom. The book contains the individual stories of six teachers working in three different schools: an inner London comprehensive with a largely working class intake, a comprehensive on the south coast and a rural comprehensive in Cambridgeshire. Each story describes and explains in brief the background of the teacher and how each came to teach all-attainment groups in mathematics. The research reported in this book is the only close examination and analysis of the practices and methodologies of successful all-attainment educators in the modern age. Three major themes are identified and examined: what sustains the teachers; how they introduce, develop and maintain all-attainment teaching; and how they make all-attainment work in the classroom. From an analysis of these findings, the book presents two interrelated models of the knowledge and understandings the research has generated. The first one is an overarching model of situation and horizon. Used as a means of visualizing and understanding the current situation for teachers, it can aid in encouraging change for the better. The second model offers teachers a way to think of all-attainment teaching as an enabler for all students, most especially for disadvantaged students. Both models have original and explanatory power and offer new ways of conceptualizing how mathematics teaching for social justice might be understood and implemented, offering fresh perspectives and unique insights. As such it will be of help to students at undergraduate, Masters and doctoral level and to education researchers more widely.

This volume contains the papers presented at the International Conference on Mathematics Ed-ucation in a Connected World held from September 16-21, 2015 in Catania, Italy. The Con-ference was organized by The Mathematics Education for the Future Project – an international educational project founded in 1986.

As teachers grapple with the challenge of a new, bigger and more challenging school curriculum, at every key stage and phase, success can feel beyond our reach. But what if there were 50,000 small solutions to help us bridge that gap? In Closing the Vocabulary Gap, Alex Quigley explores the increased demands of an academic curriculum and how closing the vocabulary gap between our ‘word poor’ and ‘word rich’ students could prove the vital difference between school failure and success. This must-read book presents the case for teacher-led efforts to develop students' vocabulary and provides practical solutions for teachers across the curriculum, incorporating easy-to-use tools, resources and classroom activities. Grounded in the very best available evidence into reading development and vocabulary acquisition, Closing the Vocabulary Gap sets out to: help teachers understand the vital role of vocabulary in all learning; share what every teacher needs to know about reading (but was afraid to ask); unveil the intriguing history of words and exactly how they work; reveal the elusive secrets to achieve spelling success; provide strategies for vocabulary development for all teachers of every subject and phase. With engaging anecdotes from the author’s extensive personal teaching experience woven throughout, as well as accessible summaries of relevant research, Alex Quigley has written an invaluable resource suitable for classroom teachers across all phases, literacy leaders and senior leadership teams who wish to close the vocabulary gap.

Teaching Mathematics is nothing less than a mathematical manifesto. Arising in response to a limited National Curriculum, and engaged with secondary schooling for those aged 11 ̶ 14 (Key Stage 3) in particular, this handbook for teachers will help them broaden and enrich their students’ mathematical education. It avoids specifying how to teach, and focuses instead on the central principles and concepts that need to be borne in mind by all teachers and textbook authors—but which are little appreciated in the UK at present.This study is aimed at anyone who would like to think more deeply about the discipline of ‘elementary mathematics’, in England and Wales and anywhere else. By analysing and supplementing the current curriculum, Teaching Mathematics provides food for thought for all those involved in school mathematics, whether as aspiring teachers or as experienced professionals. It challenges us all to reflect upon what it is that makes secondary school mathematics educationally, culturally, and socially important.

This book explores ways of teaching that are free from determinist beliefs about ability. In a detailed critique of the practices of ability labelling and ability-focussed teaching, Learning without Limits examines the damage these practices can do to young people, teachers and the curriculum. Drawing on a research project at the University of Cambridge, the book features nine vivid case studies (from Year 1 to Year 11) that describe how teachers have developed alternative practices despite considerable pressure on them and on their schools and classrooms.

There are many models of schooling; some work, some don't. Mastery is an entire model of schooling with over 100 years of provenance, its impact has been researched for decades, with many of the world's greatest education minds testing and refining the approach. It's one of the models of schooling that actually works. In this book, Mark McCourt examines the history of a teaching for mastery approach, from its early beginnings to the modern day when cognitive scientists have been able to bring further evidence to the debate, demonstrating why a model that was first proposed in the 1910s has the incredible impact on both pupil attainment and attitudes to learning that it has had all around the world over many decades. Drawing on examples from cross disciplines, the story of mastery is one that all educators can engage with. Mark also draws on his own subject, mathematics, to further exemplify the approach and to give practical examples of pedagogies and didactics that teachers can deploy immediately in their own classroom.