Activity 2: An email project focussing on Mathematics

Target Group: Transition Year Students

Engage in a mathematics contest with corresponding students in their paired school. Each school is being issued with set of seven problems. The objective is to solve as many problems as possible in 7 days. They must then challenge their paired school with these questions. Simultaneously the paired school will be carrying out a similar exercise. Calculators should not be used unless explicitly stated in the question.

Objectives:

Technology Implementation

1. To familiarise the class teachers with the use of email as a teaching tool.
2. To familiarise students with email as a means of communication with others.

1. The engage students collaboratively in problem solving
2. To reinforce the notion of mathematics as a means of communicating ideas.
3. To develop critical skills in evaluating the received material.
4. To enable students to analyse critically and to communicate their ideas with others
5. To encourage students to research aspects of mathematics with which they may not be fully familiar.
6. To prepare students for topics that they will encounter at Leaving Certificate level.
7. To have fun while solving and analysing mathematics puzzles

1. To document the benefits of the activity.
2. To document any difficulties that arose during the activity.
3. To share the various solutions that the students developed
4. To provide suggestions to other teachers for managing the activity effectively.

School-based IT-Co-ordinators’ Role

1. To select a suitable transition year class to participate in the activity (a teacher who has not used email before might be invited to participate).  It would be advisable to have a mix of abilities in the chosen classes.
2. To assist with any technical problems that arise with using email etc.
3. To encourage other teachers of Transition Year students to try out the activity.
4. To assist with the completion of an activity evaluation sheet and to return same to the project co-ordinator

Class Teacher’s Role

1. To co-ordinate the class in preparing solutions and to ensure that the approach to problem solving is within the spirit of the programme.
2. To direct the students to relevant resources to help in solving the problems.
3. To divide the class into teams, select a team leader to co-ordinate the reports from their team.
4. To encourage each student in each team to tackle each problem and to discuss the solutions in a suitable forum before the solutions are agreed.
5. To ensure that each student completes the personal activity evaluation sheet.
6. To complete the teacher’s activity evaluation sheet.

1. How were the various teams selected?
2. How many pupils took part in this activity?      _______Boys    _________Girls
3. At what level(s)  did your class take their mathematics  JCE?

_____ % Higher      ____% Ordinary       ____% Foundation

4. What approach was adopted in problem solving for this activity?
5. How many pupils in your class acted as team leaders for the activity?

_______Boys    _________Girls

6. How many pupils in your class emailed their solutions to the partner school? _______Boys _________Girls
7. Please indicate your view on the extent to which pupils in your class, using the following scale achieved the following objectives:

9. Please list any technical difficulties that arose in implementing this activity:

10. Please list any other difficulties that arose in implementing this activity:

11. How could the email activity be modified and/or improved to achieve the pupil objectives more effectively?

12. How often would you use computers in your teaching?

• Almost every day
• Once or twice a week
• Once or twice a month
• Hardly ever/never

13. Would you use email activities with your classes again? ____Yes ____No

14. Comments

Please attach any resources you used in conducting this activity and return the evaluation to the IT co-ordinator in your school.