North School Maths - How Can I Be More Like Charles Lovitt?

The maths team are excited to share some interesting ideas presented by Charles Lovitt during our latest professional learning days. We found Charles inspiring and I was excited to try out the activities and different ways of delivering content.

Below, you will find some questions that may help in the creation of quality learning experiences for your students. Currently, we have been auditing our most recent lessons to see if anything from the list would have added value to the learning experience.

We have emailed staff: ‘We invite you to look at this list, look at an activity you have planned and ask your team the questions, can I…. ? Would it add value to your lesson? Are there elements on this list you haven’t done in a while?’

Charles Lovitt described quality lessons as a flower, with each petal representing an important attribute. The more attributes attached to the lesson, the more interesting and worthwhile the task. Attributes sourced from International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program.

International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program: Students learn best when

Please find below an interesting example of the same task using two different approaches.

Overview

Students create and record a shopping list of groceries as part of their Classroom Enterprising ‘Real Fake Llife’. They will use a supermarket catalogue to accomplish the requirements of:

adequate food
adequate toiletry items (soap, toothpaste etc.)
adequate cleaning products

Student will demonstrate reasoning for their decisions by proving that they have enough supplies to last two weeks.

Maths links:

Linking Multiplication with money. E.g. Packs of donuts are $2.30 and I want two of them. $2.30 x 2.
Addition and Subtraction with money and decimals
Decimals using money
Creating tables
Creating financial plans
Key terms for fractions when they are splitting costs and packets of items between their roommates, friends and week.

Story – With our houses almost complete, it’s time to start the next stage of our ‘Real Fake Life’. What’s better than a roof over your head? A belly full of food and clean clothes!

At this stage, our town is in a remote location and your shopping will be air lifted once a fortnight (so make sure you have enough to last until the next shop!)