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What would help you learn Maths (GCSE or A Level)?

I am a teacher and I suppose you could class this as a bit of market research. I am interested in what you think would assist you more in the learning of maths as I have the whole summer to create something and Im interested in ideas. Any help would be massively appreciated and any comments taken on board. What would you like to see in a learning tool? Videos? Books? Games? Does it need to be accessible via your phone? Is using a laptop/PC a plus point?

My interpretation of whats out there at the moment is below:

Past Papers:

Great since you are getting used to the questions and how they are worded and good since you are actually doing maths (which is the most important bit as reading/watching alone creates no learning imo). But ultimately if you get a question wrong there is no follow up stuff, you can't focus in on one topic to really build understanding of that topic. For quick revision they are a necessary evil but they are a useless learning tool imo.

CGP Books:

Some good explanations but I feel like the books are a little patronising and treat pupils as if they are about 2 years younger than they are. Im also sceptical of the amount you can learn just by reading and think a video walkthrough must be miles clearer? What do you think?

Mathswatch:

Great that its a video walkthrough and great that it provides additional questions on the same topic for you guys to practice. Most of my students complain that its a bit dull and dreary and her voice is very annoying.

Mymaths:

Great in that a lot of the lessons have interactive elements but again Mymaths feels as though its been designed for Yr7-9 pupils rather than GCSE/A Level.

I think we are going to try and design something that has video walkthroughs similar to mathswatch but then the video stops and gives you a question or activity. If you get this right you go on to the next step whereas getting it wrong would show you a different explanation or a video solution. So your path through the videos would be unique to you on every different topic. We are also going to try and do some 'real world' examples like calculating how far a plane is away from the airport using trigonometry.

Have any of you guys used things like Khan academy and what do you think of it?

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 1

RDKGames

Study Forum Helper

Original post by Mathmoji

I have recently finished my A-Levels earlier this summer and have done Maths + FM. If I had to say from experience, I learnt most of the stuff just from my teachers going over ideas on the board and linking into simple concepts that are already well understood by my class and myself. Sometimes I consulted my teacher(s) one on one outside lesson's to understand certain concepts better. I simply did as many questions as I could and barely went on anything other than my teacher's maths website (www.mathedup.co.uk you may contact him if you want to use these resources, they were really useful! His site has stuff for all GCSE and A-Level spec) So really, I didn't use anything other than that, not even Khan Academy as far as my A-Level course was concerned.

However, towards the end of the academic year, my teacher and my small class experimented with the possibilities of Desmos and how it can connect the class. The concept was simple; a teacher sets up some tasks by means of an activity within a controlled environment on Desmos and can give out a unique class code to his/her class, and students can connect to the classroom activity via phones, tablets or computers. I believe he set it up on https://teacher.desmos.com/ and the students were able to connect through https://student.desmos.com
Myself I am not a teacher but I see some significance in this allowing students to learn the pure side of maths if utilised properly within the learning environment.

Hope this helps!

(edited 7 years ago)