#covid19 and misleading statistics

Every day I get annoyed at some misinformation about the coronavirus. Whether it is a misleading graph, misinformation about a statistic or the press criticizing leaders over what should or should not be done everyone needs to calm down a bit.

The bottom line is everyone is doing their best. It may not seem like it to you, but even the world leaders will believe they are trying their hardest for their nations needs. Whether or not they are an idiot is a separate debate in which I am sure we all have very educated opinions 🙂

So this is what we know:

  • a number for the total covid 19 cases worldwide/by region/by country/…
  • a number for the total covid 19 deaths …
  • some numbers for PPE, doctors, nurses, hospitals and other data around covid 19

Of these, only the third item will be anywhere factual. The first 2 will be a best estimate and will be reported with a variety of methods and diagnoses. They are likely to be lower estimates.

This is a list of other factors we know:

  • country populations, death rates, covid 19 death rates
  • population densities (46 people per square mile in New Zealand, 623 pp sq mi Germany, 4542 pp sq mi LONDON)
  • country infrastructure (underground systems, ferry ports, number of cars, ….)

Some of these factors are VERY IMPORTANT if you give them some thought. Of course a virus will spread more in London in the week that we brought all of our nationals home by airplane. Of course the virus will not spread quickly in the middle of a desert where the mode of transport is camel.

I tried to explain to my daughter why we in the UK may have a high death rate. Here are my first thoughts:

  • Our NHS is amazing – they look after people (including elderly) very well. We therefore have an aging population who are most susceptible to death from covid 19.
  • When we were asked to stay at home before lockdown, a lot of people did not. Take a look at yourselves for exacerbating this.
  • If, a couple of weeks before this happened, we shut our borders completely (easy for an island to do) we would not have had this problem. A lot of people would have whinged and complained though as it seems some people are like that in the UK.

So we (me, you, the press, governments, …) can try to look at the data and make comparisons and suggest best models to combat the spread of covid 19, but, and this I feel is the most important factor, you cannot compare country by country. Full stop!

It would be like me saying Alice in year 10 maths is better than Ruby in year 10 maths because she scored 9/10 on her homework and Ruby got 8/10. What?! There are SO MANY FACTORS in this. Students are individuals. Countries are all different.

Yes, share all the positive good ideas and science. No, do not criticise and blame leaders. Unless they are an official idiot.

And next time, just shut up shop to the world for a month – apparently 52% of the country voted for that anyway.

 

 

Coronavirus

The BBC breaking news says UK schools to close.

I have just come from school. Our school has had to shut its doors to students as we do not have enough staff to stay open. It was also perceived to be unfair to open just for some years and not others. We include everyone. SLT have done an amazing job. Everyone has supported each other and the students. I said a sad farewell to some students. For the first time since the outbreak I have started crying.

The Prime Minister is talking sense. Protect the vulnerable students, support the key workers. I would like to be in school to support our students. We already have a plan in place for tomorrow for the staff who are in to help out with such things as free school meals and ensuring students without internet access have work. Some of those students do not want to be away from school though. Knowing our school, we will do all we can for them. I will be at home looking after my own girls.

A few weeks ago I started a spreadsheet to look at the number of deaths from the virus (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pnax07YZFBfKA0CcOfGhRQXa2EhdRe7LG8t3ttn9_V8/edit?usp=sharing ). This would be a real life modelling situation to show my year 11s as we prepare for exams and those fiddly graphs that can come up. It currently doesn’t seem important at all. Exams cancelled. Look after your families. I hope my Grandmother comes through this ok – that is all that matters now. I would like to visit but know that there is a chance I have the virus but do not know it. I hope she can manage facetime.

The family have stared a diary of what is happening. We have been in touch with notes to our elderly neighbours. Alice has just left a bag outside for them. We got them vodka 🙂

As a former headteacher of mine always said, The Sun Will Shine Again Tomorrow.

Greta Thunberg

Top post of the week!

My Daughters' Earth

I know she makes the news a lot but it is always for the right reasons. There is an interesting article from Forbes that is worth a read about Greta: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2020/01/06/why-greta-thunberg-is-totally-correct-in-her-latest-climate-change-tweet/#d73bd4a29c3f

Whether you like her or not, I think she is a brave young lady just trying to do the right thing. I talk to my students about her and have showed the school her TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAmmUIEsN9A. Anything this young lady has to say is worth listening to. Jon

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Starter questions

All ready for the start of September. I am going for a few different styles this year:

  • 5 warm up questions
  • 9 quick questions in 3×3 grid
  • 4 questions based on last lesson/week/topic etc

Here are first lesson screen shots for my classes:

If there is interest I will make each available as a google slide. Share and enjoy 🙂

Update. Now all files will be linked to via the following page:

https://sites.google.com/site/maths2014sow/starter-questions

Data review and tracking

I have been a head of maths in various forms for 9 years now. Subject lead, head of department, head of faculty, … basically: in charge of maths.

Over this time the way I work with data, not only as a HoD but also a subject teacher, has changed a lot. In the old days it was a spreadsheet and some nice pivot tables. I do like the data they can generate: %A*-A, %A*-B, etc.

This changed with our new curriculum. Not by design, but when I planned a new tracking system I wanted it to work… better. So I collected together what I wanted (emphasis on ME and not on SLT or others) and planned something that would work for OUR department. Some other maths HoDs gave me ideas and overall we now have a working document that works…for us!

In general, for each year group I do the following:

  • Draw in relevant data (KS2 scores, FFT50, FFT20)
  • Rank the students from this (including birthday to differentiate exactly same scores)
  • Log all of the students assessments through time
  • Rank the students based on assessments (factor in a +x, +y, … for higher sets to help rank – we add about 30% per increasing set number)
  • Compare current rank vs expected rank (generates a +/-)
  • Lookup FFT50 grade based on rank and that is the current grade of working

It sounds a lot but isn’t. Especially once it is set up. Staff just add in their assessment scores and the tracker does the rest. All things being equal (e.g. good teaching in a good school and no major anomalies) then the current grade should end up being the GCSE grade.

We have turned out to predict GCSE grades quite well and the system works for us. Obviously we know the students and any factors that come up so can adjust accordingly but it has saved us spending a lot of time on thinking about grading students.

A snapshot of how this looks:

Capture

The real beauty of this is what I have completed this year. Based on a similar system I have created my own class trackers, and they work just as well. I am a big spreadsheet fan and love google sheets so it is all in them.

I like putting all the data together for parents evenings. This one colour coded by topic. Parents love it! Copies up in my classroom too for the students.

Capture2

I think I know who is doing well (and not so well) from this. It is just test score %s summed for the bars. Colours for major strands (algebra, number etc). It does take a while to populate too. An earlier year 7 version with less assessments:

Capture3

I started playing around with a new chart though and showed the assistant head. Now I have a few other heads of faculty to show it to so they can make the most of data too!

This one is the student test rank in class vs the progress they are making (measured with assessment data vs FFT50 as mentioned before). This is my master sheet with made up names that I then populate each year with a new class:

Capture4

The brilliant thing with google sheets is that you can copy an individual sheet to a different google sheet and it picks up everything – formulas, the works! I didn’t do anything extra to my master sheet, it just picked up the data from the same positions as all my sheets are based on the template.

So from my nice scatter graph I can tell who is underperforming at a glance – and who is doing well – regardless of their place in the class ranking.

I love a good graph!

 

Collaborative Mathematics (9-1) Scheme of Work

https://sites.google.com/site/maths2014sow/

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This website hosts schemes of work and resources for the new secondary Mathematics 2014 (2015) curriculum. We have drawn together experience from current Mathematics teachers across England to make this happen and would like to freely share it.

From September 2014 we have been teaching this content to students in years 7, 8 and 9 as well as developing resources and assessments for the new curriculum.

Our ethos is simple: freely sharing resources and good practice!

Khan Academy

Khan Academy

A short collection of bits I have written before on Khan Academy. My students still use it and it is a great maths tool for learning and revision.

 

August 2016.

I have written this program for curve stitching on Khan Academy: Curve stitch with input

https://www.khanacademy.org/

Just over 4 years ago I came across a website called the Khan Academy. Set up by Sol Khan it was at the time a funky map of all of Maths to roughly A level and you could work through it with hierarchical pathways. Great fun if you like doing some maths for fun, interactively and with a different slant. Sometimes too different with the Americanisms but that was part of the fun too!

So moving on another couple of years. The website had much more of an updated feel to it and I introduced my daughter to it. Setting her up on early math (yes, mildly annoying, but we get used to it as the site is SO good) and most weekends she will want to do some on it – although this weekend she turned six and decided to do some equations (one unknown only) from some worksheets I had lying around! So I was now a learner myself and a parent too 🙂

But then the revolution came.

At the end of the last school year I decided I would use this with my classes. I tried it out with a couple of them just to show them it as an extra revision tool, but there were some students who were VERY interested. So I thought I would use it as a tool with my classes this year and experiment a bit with flipped learning with it (en vogue maybe, but I will always do the best thing for individual students).

So from September I have been setting up my classes, now with all of them added as a class and using the site – even sixth formers. So I am now a coach too! I have completed the following this term with each class:

  • used it in lessons 2/3 times for a variety of activities
  • set a couple of homework tasks on it for consolidation
  • set a couple of flipped learning assignments on it for the following week
  • reviewed student progress and monitored students own optional work

From this I have given the students a good opportunity to explore using technology in this interactive form. There are some topics that are not perfectly matched to the UK system and many terms that need explaining to students due to Americanisms but as mentioned before this can add to the fun, finding out about more than what a UK textbook would give you. The main advantages I have found of using the Khan Academy are:

  • Student engagement, including them completing hours of ‘extra’ work off their own backs and in their own time
  • Tracking student progress at a 1-1 level
  • Tailoring support for groups of students
  • Feeding in to lesson planning based on their understanding when I check progress over the weekend

And it is great fun to use! Students love the badges. The most unlikely students get well in to their work and then they extend themselves further! Several students have looked at more challenging maths topics and even moved into the newer Khan Academy subjects including science. Several students have written a computer program using it – basic to start off with but often we would give anything for this kind of engagement and interest from students without prompting. I have also set myself up as a khan academy ambassador so if you would like to sign up do so via this link: https://www.khanacademy.org/a/astromouse

So, check it out at https://www.khanacademy.org/ and follow on twitter at @khanacademy – guaranteed learning fun!

 

March 2015 update:

I have put together a ppt file for showing parents about the Khan Academy. This is a mix of files available from the Khan Academy and extra info from our school.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4u1DJOa6tDkb3pUUDVJWVQ2bFE/view?usp=sharing

 

Imperial measures – April 1st

Coming from one of my colleagues email a while ago:

“April 1st is almost immediately after Brexit day (if that happens).  On April 1st we should teach all the kids the imperial money and measurement system, telling them that now we’ve left Europe the gvmt insists we are going back to that system…”

We thought we would have some fun on Monday.

See some resources that will be used in KS3 classes:

Flowchart of measures:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IejPhbe8gE2OwTUqpyhTqYgbxIgh4w_K

Some questions:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1khbkPtlq0CnWAO3WsVT6J_d8hxUMNyIG

Conversions from a long time ago: (source unknown)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=10o2PtOS_5T3XEKtkLus0zh0z6CobmwU5

Some questions:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XgDCoa702EvvZd1Nv0Mzm9MAD6xZr3ue

Have fun!

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