Mind Your Maths Book

Mind Your Maths

All too often, once students are allowed to use a calculator in their maths studies, they rely on it for all calculations in the mistaken belief that they will get the answer more quickly than they would through mental methods. Yet the truth is quite the opposite: with strong mental arithmetic skills, students focus on the important concepts rather than getting bogged down by calculations. Mind Your Maths is designed to build those skills, prompting students to step back and think about what a problem is really asking – and then to answer it confidently and efficiently. While recognising that students need a calculator for certain topics such as trigonometry, the activities in this book deepen students’ insight into just how much arithmetic they can do successfully without one. They also set timeframes for completion so that students work on their speed as an essential component of effective mental arithmetic. Topics cover integers, fractions, decimals and percentages, emphasising the practice of operations such as powers of numbers and finding the square root and cube roots of fractions and decimals.

PAGES: 72 | AGES: 12-15 | PUBLISHED: November 2019

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vaneeta Manners has over 12 years’ experience in secondary mathematics education. During her career to date, she has taught in Australia, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and her work has included teaching the international baccalaureate syllabus. She is passionate about making mathematics accessible to all students, particularly those who struggle with the subject. Vaneeta enjoys developing classroom resources and activities that engage, motivate and challenge students. She currently works in New South Wales, Australia as an assistant head of mathematics.