As Natalie pointed out, status icons help you easily decipher at a glance how your students are progressing. Remember we don’t leave you wondering what factors have contributed to each student’s status; you can always hover your mouse over an icon for a more in-depth look behind the status. This is particularly helpful in identifying areas that need improving quickly and effectively. To see the video click link.

The hover over feature is also found in a number of other reporting areas. For example, this feature appears on the number line when looking at students in the class view. Hover over a student icon on the line to see who’s who and their current Maths Age™. We also want to make sure teachers and administrators are able to ensure students are using Maths-Whizz properly. Just click on the usage tab while in class reports to see each student’s usage while in the tutor mode.

So remember – time spent in the bedroom watering plants or using the replay feature are not counted toward usage. This is helpful if you feel as though your students are scheduled to use Maths-Whizz 60 minutes a week but their usage is only registering say 40 minutes. I hope you found this video tutorial and post useful.

Next time we’ll be taking another look at reporting features, with even more tips and recommendations for how you and your students can get the most out of Maths-Whizz!

The article’s authors, Sol Garfunkel and David Mumford, argue strongly in favour of a maths curriculum that exists in relation to the science, engineering, finance (and so on) that it serves every day, and they say why it’s so important.

Garfunkel and Mumford make an analogy with languages. Learning French teaches both abstract grammatical skills and practical language, but you will never have the chance to use Latin to buy a loaf of bread. In this respect – they argue – the abstract skills that you might gain from a dead language are wasted if they aren’t learned in a context that you can use.

This chimes with recent suggestions from a review into maths education in the UK (led by the lovely Carol Vorderman) that our maths curriculum pre-A-level should be broken up into ‘practical’ and ‘formal’ maths.

In this curriculum every student takes practical maths, arming them for a life choosing between mortgages and interpreting medical test results. More able and motivated students can opt to take the additional formal, and more abstract, maths module.

Mumford and Garfunkel say that the new US Common Core State Standards, which I’ve helped Whizz align its maths lessons to, is “highly abstract”, and “simply not the best way to prepare a vast majority of high school students for life.” But I’m not sure they’ve got the point of that (or any) curriculum. A curriculum should tell teachers and students what they need to study, not necessarily how, or even why, except maybe to put a subject in context.

It’s the good teacher who draws the abstract and the practical together to greatest effect. Not every teacher – especially at primary level – may be confident enough to link the two, but by giving the teacher the opportunity to do this, rather than prescribing how to apply ‘practical’ maths, an ‘abstract’ curriculum can be as relevant as the teacher and her students want it to be.

Maths is often called the science of patterns. And if chemistry really comes alive when we blow something up, then maths should come alive when we use it to, say, spot the ‘golden ratio’ in Chartres Cathedral (see Marcus du Sautoy’s BBC Series, The Code).

But it’s a two-way street. Project Euler, which I wrote about last month, trains budding programmers by getting them to solve maths puzzles. Garfunkel and Mumford say that practical skills, like learning to code, are more useful than abstract, but in the case of Project Euler the abstract is successfully used to teach the practical, and with some success.

I’ll concede that the principle outlined by Mumford, Garfunkel, Vorderman, et al – of the difference between the maths you use to calculate change and the maths you use to describe fractal geometry – makes perfect sense. But it may be a false distinction.

Whizz Education US company president, Ben, has a skill which I envy – he can intuitively understand the relationships between numbers. For me, it’s not quite so easy, but I wouldn’t want to be denied this insight into abstract maths because of a lack of natural ability; I can still appreciate Chartres Cathedral.

To return to the NY Times’ authors’ analogy, I took Latin and Ancient Greek at GCSE – two subjects that are, in themselves, utterly useless in the real world. But I was enriched by learning them. I could spot some of the hidden histories and meanings in words with ancient roots, and read street signs in modern versions of the ancient Greek alphabet.

If creativity lies in making connections between apparently unrelated subjects then ‘pure’, or theoretical, maths must be vital for creative young science minds, wherever they are. To assume that they should only use maths that tells them how to calculate compound interest (a truly vital skill) is to assume that they will get no pleasure from discovering a subject for its own sake. And that is sad.

At Maths-Whizz we try to instil a sense both of the practical and the abstract – and with our 1200+ maths lessons there’s ample opportunity for the young Whizzer to link the two. As Hilary and Steve, two of our expert founding mathematicians, once pointed out to me – put a pound sign in front of a sum or subtraction with decimal values and it suddenly becomes easier.

So, here’s to producing mathematicians who know that the abstract and the practical are two sides of the same coin. It’s a coin that can teach them as much about pi – that most wonderful of irrational numbers – as it can about the price of a loaf of bread.

Innovation award winners!

The Education Resource Awards (ERA), held on the 18th March, and organised by the British Educational Suppliers Association, were created to:

…celebrate the innovative approach to learning and teaching by teachers, institutions and organisations from all levels of education.

Whizz has been thrice-nominated in previous ERA categories but fourth time, it seems, was the charm (as the vid on the Whizz Youtube channel shows)!

The response of the Whizz team at Birmingham’s Motorcycle Museum pretty much sums up our excitement and pride in this award.

In a more sober fashion, Ray Douse, Whizz CFO, said:

This win means a lot for our business both in the UK and internationally. The objective of Maths-Whizz is to bring together teachers, children and their parents and we feel the judges clearly recognised and valued this feature.

We can now add this to the stack of other awards in the Whizz Awards Cabinet, along with two other finalist positions at this year’s ERA.

You can read the official BESA press release here.

Alison Gopnik, writing at Slate.com, comments on the increasing tendency to teach pre-school children, rather than allow them to play. She suggests that this approach, at least for the youngest children, might be stifling not just creativity, but the ability to learn, and she cites two new papers that draw from computer science to prove her point.

Adults often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory, spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more fundamental. It’s this kind of learning, in fact, that allows kids to learn from teachers in the first place.

The key seems to be the way children learn about learning. A child will learn about the teaching method in order to understand better how to learn. Two recent papers in the journal Cognition explore the nature of that process by giving groups of children toys with hidden features and starting them off with either an exploratory approach or a taught one.

The understanding is that a purely demonstrative, instructional teacher implicitly conveys the understanding that the student can only learn by doing as she does, following her instruction. Whereas, a teacher who explores with the student (or even no teacher at all) brings with her the belief that experiment and investigation are just as useful as instruction, and that not all knowledge is directed.

Both research groups found that the less-directed students discovered more, and explored for longer. The differences between being instructed and encouraged to explore in both studies were subtle – a teacher might demonstrate an action (or set of actions) that produces a result in a toy and tell children to do likewise, or the teacher might explore the toy to produce an action as if by accident and encourage the children to see what they can find for themselves.

The research Gopnik refers to is new, and devoted to pre-school subjects, so it may be inappropriate to extrapolate this to primary age children. But these findings point to what she describes as a common intuition amongst teachers: that play can be just as powerful a learning tool as instruction if not, at least for the youngest, more so.

So what, if any, conclusions can we draw for the primary and early secondary children who use our online maths tutor Maths-Whizz? The first might be that there is such a thing as too young to study – we tend to discourage parents who want to use Maths-Whizz for their more advanced four year olds.

Second, we built into our maths lessons an implicit understanding of a child’s learning style at different ages. Earlier lessons at ages five and six are more exploratory and playful, and are devoted to the concepts that underpin maths rather than the more ‘math-y’ material in ages seven and up.

Finally, our recommended usage patterns reflect the need for younger children to have a more varied and undirected experience, away from a computer.

Gopnik echoes indirectly the call for creativity in education, given memorably by Sir Ken Robinson at a TED talk some years ago:

…it’s more important than ever to give children’s remarkable, spontaneous learning abilities free rein. That means a rich, stable, and safe world, with affectionate and supportive grown-ups, and lots of opportunities for exploration and play. Not school for babies.

Maths-Whizz, as numerous awards, hundreds of testimonials, and tens of thousands of online users prove, is a fabulous and enjoyable tool for building numeracy and boosting confidence in maths.

But we know there is always room for play in maths learning and we encourage students to step away from their online tutor now and then. So, how can you encourage your Maths-Whizzers to make the most of their creative instincts? Without second-guessing the results of future research in this field, here’s an informal selection of ideas:

• Explore maths concepts with the Whizz Tools Board (accessible from the bedroom). Play with cards, dice, counters, shapes, number grids and number ‘machines’.
• Ask your child to teach you. This is a great way to encourage students to marshal their knowledge and creatively convey what they know.
• Find maths in the real world. Look for shapes and angles in the house, think about how to estimate the number of leaves on a tree, and make your own graphs and charts.
• Tell stories with maths. Imagine you’re a number or a shape, and describe your day!

With Maths-Whizz, a little play can go a long way!

But, for your delayed edification and delight, a couple of topical nuggets about that loveliest of irrational numbers.

First, from kottke.org, celebrating pi day with a great fact:

…this is my new favorite fact about pi: we have calculated pi out to over 6.4 billion digits but only 39 of them are needed to calculate the circumference of a circle as big as the universe “with a precision comparable to the radius of a hydrogen atom”. (via @santheo)

And, second, a musical number (pardon the pun) devoted to pi, and based on its shapely digits. Listen, and enjoy:

And that’s that!

In a report which looks at the limited impact of the money spent on the Skills for Life programme, author Dame Mary Marsh points out that poor numeracy is somehow far less shameful than poor literacy – a sentiment echoed by NIACE Director of Operations Carol Taylor.

The parents who come to Maths-Whizz to give their children a boost in numeracy are the opposite of the bad maths ‘badge of honour’ wearers. They are the parents who recognise the importance of maths not just for passing exams but for the life that follows the school years.

Even so, we still sometimes see an attitude which may be behind the problem outlined by NIACE. I once spoke to a parent who told me she was an accountant, and used maths every day. “Bravo!”, I thought. The mother was certainly keen on her son improving his maths, but she was angered that he was required to do so much pencil and paper-style working out (roughly 10% of the Whizz curriculum at his age). This was because, to use her words, “he can just use a calculator”.

At this point I confess I wanted to throw the telephone across the room and go for a long walk. But hers is an all-too-common sentiment that maybe is at the heart of our ‘problem’: namely, that whilst maths is A Good Thing To Know, we don’t really need to know it.

This attitude may be less a function of maths per se, and more a function of an advancing technical society. Maths skills are no less in demand than they were, and sectors like software, finance, research and business require good maths; but almost all of us can rub along with the very basics.

In fact, the NIACE report points out that only one in 10 adults with numeracy skills lower than an 11-year-old had taken a numeracy course. I don’t find this remotely surprising, because the maths required of a 10-year-old is often adequate for adult life.

The Whizz curriculum, which is based on the Primary National Strategy for Maths, teaches ratio, percentages, basic statistics, coordinate geometry, relatively tricky mental maths, and long division (amongst other subjects) to its maths age 10 students.

If we could all do long division and understand the difference between mean, median, and mode we would be a damn sight better off than we are now. So I suspect NIACE is pointing at the wrong statistics. In my opinion it’s less about whether we’re better mathematicians than our year 5 students, and more about whether we truly understand, or use, our year 5 maths skills.

If we fail to spot the right change in a shop, or work out the best interest rates for our savings, or understand the health statistics associated with lifestyle changes we may end up considerably less healthy and wealthy, but we won’t attribute such mistakes to poor maths. Instead, we put this failure down to others’ lack of scruples.

Government and industry should work harder to convey numeric information better (such as medical test reports and mortgage documents) in an age in which we are bombarded with data. But the very quantity of such data has made us passive, trusting, recipients. Whether or not we have the maths skills of an 11-year-old is irrelevant if we don’t know when to use those skills.

To take our accountant’s son, he doesn’t need to know how long division works, only that he can put the numbers into a calculator in a particular order to get the right answer. And since calculators never fail, he’ll be fine. But, as any good software developer knows, GIGO – “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. In other words, even the best calculator in the world can’t give you the right answer if you type the numbers in the wrong order.

And this is why a technologically advanced society risks losing an appreciation of maths skills just as it risks losing an appreciation of basic engineering or science. Despite being surrounded by electronic appliances, and the fruits of centuries of scientific development, we really only need to know that such appliances work, and not why, or even how.

Sixty-odd years ago, CP Snow decried an equivalent embarrassment gap to the one described by Dame Mary. He compared being asked to name, say, a Shakespeare tragedy and the Laws of Thermodynamics. He was right that this was a massive imbalance of priorities, but wrong to focus on shame, because once you’ve established that the Laws of Thermodynamics explain how the refrigerator works, the conversation generally ends. Which is a pity, but we take the fridge on trust. We don’t do the same for Hamlet.

So, to cut a long blog post short – NIACE is right, and yet they might be fighting the wrong battle. If we bang on too much about whether we have the necessary maths skills we might not stop to wonder whether we’re actually using them.

But we want to know what ‘happiness in numbers’ actually means for you.

Is there Happiness in Numbers?

We’ve started by talking to some of our students, parents, and teachers about how they’re finding happiness in numbers with Maths-Whizz. You can watch some of these ‘Maths-Whizz Chat’ videos on our Whizz Youtube channel.

But happiness in numbers can mean many things. It can mean the feeling you get when you work out your change at the shop faster than the person with the cash machine. It can mean turning Delia’s recipe for four into a six-person feast. It can mean spotting that that ‘value pack’ isn’t such good value. Or it might just mean the pleasure you get seeing how the world works with numbers, like the excellent Hans Rosling.

We want to broaden the conversation, see how people (and not just Whizzers) find happiness in numbers. So get in touch!

Here’s how:

• Add a comment to this blog post
• Follow the WhizzProf on Twitter, or post with the hashtag #happinessinnumbers
• Subscribe to our Maths-Whizz Youtube channel and comment on any of our videos
• ‘Like’ our Whizz Education page on Facebook, or the brand-new WhizzProf page, and add a comment.
• Join the Happiness in Numbers LinkedIn group
• Or, just get in touch with us at customerservice@whizzeducation.com

We’ll let you know where everyone finds happiness in numbers, so watch this space!

[Image via the Mostlymath blog]

Maths teaching is not a profession we associate with glamour, or influence, let alone popularity. But maybe it should be.

I thought I’d follow on from a post by Ginny at the Seattle offices of Whizz US. The EdWeek article that inspired Ginny focused on efforts to improve maths teaching in the US and the difficulties finding new teachers who “know and love math”.

Ginny reminds us just how influential a good maths education can be:

In a world where math is inextricably tied to our everyday lives, why are other professions so alluring? As a math teacher, think about how explosive one’s reach can be on the world…

How often do we consider the impact a math teacher has on a student’s success in future career endeavors?

And the answer is: “Not often enough.” I remember most of my own maths teachers as the targets of youthful contempt – bespectacled and socially awkward – and remember too little of the fascinating world that mathematical understanding can reveal.

Hold the world in your hands - with maths

Some of my early maths education must have rubbed off, and not in ways that I appreciated at the time – I was a big fan of MC Escher’s tesselations, mathematically accurate mirror-image drawings, and his famous never-ending staircases.

So, as Ginny asked on the US blog:

…how do you capture that excitement and make it infectious? How do you transfer the teacher’s passion to the student…? That love of teaching, that love of math – how do we reach students and show them that teaching math is indeed a “noble profession”.

How, indeed.

And, to be honest, I don’t have the answer, except to say that we must reinstate teaching as a profession equal in status to medicine or the law, rid ourselves of the pernicious maxim that “those who can, do and those who cannot, teach”, and compensate teachers to a level that recognises the enormous responsibility they have.

And few of those have a greater responsibility than the humble maths teacher.

The Nerd Rises - Alex Bellos and Matt Parker

Writing about Ed Miliband’s recent admission that he was a bit of a nerd, Parker gives succour to those who have been teased for their geeky interests and ambitions at school.

I’ve taught maths in inner London comprehensives and they are full of kids having a rough time who will undoubtedly succeed in the rest of their life. I remember looking at the members of the maths club and thinking “you’ve just got to make it through these few years and then you’ll be all right”.

At Maths-Whizz we celebrate the nerd, the geek, the unashamed lover of the science of patterns. We know (and we’ve often pointed out in this blog) just how useful a love of maths can be.

As Parker notes, the geeky, maths-loving founders of Google are two of the world’s richest people (never mind the equally geeky Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg). For me, that’s no so important as the fact that their love of numbers and the so-called ‘nerdy’ subjects has opened whole worlds for them, and us, to explore.

Ben Goldacre, a self-confessed geek about science, medicine, and statistics uses his inner nerd for good – exposing bad science everywhere, often just through careful use of maths.

Chris Addison uses his nerdy side to make us laugh, and then think. Brian Cox uses his love of science (and, admittedly, his boyish good looks) to help us understand, and marvel at, the universe.

Parker, Goldacre, and Addison are some of the stars of 2011′s wonderful Geek Calendar – a picture celebration of the awkward squad made good – Aleks Krotoski, Alex Bellos, and more… even Jonathan Ross.

Any child who wants to be better at maths but thinks it’s not ‘cool’ should be reassured that they will join an illustrious group whose number skills and all-round nerdiness have taken them places others can only dream about. Whether they’re already Maths-Whizzers, or just want to be, we welcome them all.

So, inspired by Parker’s remarks, we should proclaim:

Blessed are the nerds, for they shall inherit the Earth.

[via The Guardian's Comment is Free and The Geek Calendar]

The Mead School, in Tunbridge Wells, is a long-time Maths-Whizz Tutoring Plus user, and Independent Schools Association member.

The Mead School's high-achieving Maths-Whizzers!

Isobel Feaver, Mead’s literacy co-ordinator, year 5 teacher and all-round whizz herself is a champion of online maths tutoring; The Mead School has seen great successes on her watch.

Isobel describes how Maths-Whizz is making a difference at The Mead School:

By working on Maths Whizz both at home and at school every single child is developing and pushing forward their own ability in Maths in addition to all the fantastic Mathematics teaching that they receive at school.

Isobel used our Maths-Whizz Tutoring for Schools report tool to record each pupil’s weekly usage for the last three months. She then identified the child in each class who had improved the most (see pic).

As Isobel said: “Every Mead child deserves a pat on the back for all their hard work this term.”

We couldn’t agree more!