bodmas blog

“I find it very liberating to have a format that allows you to store a few years worth of work in a single shoebox.”
– Hugh MacLeod

I used to be able to carry a couple of years work around on two sides of A4. These days, I need shelves full of lever arch files and a 1 Gb memory stick. Back soon with Maths quizzes and worksheets.

• Enrolment
• Hundreds of people signing up for courses and asking for advice
• We have introduced a policy of diagnostic testing (a hour on a computer screen)
• Prospective students have accepted this without demur, and more than a few have expressed some satisfaction at the end of the test
• A small number still can’t accept our advice that a certain course may not be appropriate – and they seem to find it amazing that we can refuse to enrol them on the course in question
• I’m wondering how the Somali lady with a University degree from Khartoum travelling on a Dutch passport got on… she needs child care and wants to study to be a pharmacist

Chalk drawing of a man in a top hat on a closed up door in Wolverhampton. Someone spent some time on this.

Pedagogical Templates for E-Learning is the title of a 32 page report from the Institute of Education. The report summarises a literature survey of course design models, which is useful in itself. The authors attempt to place the various models on a scale that runs from ‘pure’ face to face all the way to ‘total’ distance learning. Each ‘template’ is a side or so long and summarised in a way that teachers would find easy to implement.

The format of each pedagogical template comes close to my idea for learning patterns. I’d hope to capture the patterns first and see what ordering principles or categories emerged rather than fit patterns to an existing scale. The scale used in the report is useful for the tactical purpose of implementing ILT in course design and helping busy colleagues work out what they want to do.

Found via Jane’s e-learning pick of the day blog, and very handy for CPD and helping colleagues understand what can be done with Moodle.

Download a single sided worksheet with questions on the mean, median, mode, simple probability, with answers.

I introduce this topic early in Access maths courses because some Universities set entrance tests in numeracy, especially in the areas of Nursing and Midwifery. I find covering the basic definition of the three averages, and exploring the vocabulary of probability helps boost the students’ confidence when faced with a test in an interview setting. It has to be said that the content of some of these numeracy tests, as remembered by the students, is ‘interesting’.

Related posts include

• Probability podcast – covers more than these questions need
• Mean, median, mode YouTube, commercially produced with a sound track so repetitive that it bludgeons the students into understanding the concept

Download a one sided worksheet with questions on calculator based percentages.

• Expressing numbers in percentage form including change questions
• Finding the value of a percentage given the whole
• Finding the whole given the value of a percentage (‘reverse percentage’)

Related posts include

• 50 number questions with answers
• examples from ecology context – makes a change from bank interest and insurance premiums
• 40 mixed questions on number, fractions and percentages