Assessing your students’ current knowledge of, and comfort with, a particular topic is important before trying to build on that topic. It is especially important if, like I’ve done on occasion in recent years, you’re supply teaching and find yourself in front of classes that you don’t know well, if at all. Rather than work […]

At MathsConf 25, I spoke very briefly about trigonometry, amongst other things—such as pantographs, nomograms, and slide rules. Here I’ll share some of my thoughts on teaching trigonometry, which I’d been pondering for a while. What I found unhelpful In the past, I’ve often used applets like this one: A problem is that there’s a […]

Debates around evidence-informed teaching and attempts to convince others using evidence have led me to make several observations, four of which I share in this series of posts. In my first post, I suggested that the bit of evidence you find most compelling might not be the bit someone else finds most compelling. This post […]

Debates around evidence-informed teaching and attempts to convince others using evidence often remind me of various episodes in my life outside teaching. In this series of posts, rather than focusing on the specifics of evidence-informed teaching, I make four observations about evidence being used to influence actions in non-teaching contexts. I think these observations remain […]