Slough and Windsor Teacher Network

Overview

Slough and Windsor Teacher Network is an AMSP-funded project, allowing teachers of A level Mathematics to meet, collaborate and to share best practice. We meet between 4 and 6 times per academic year. The programme is mainly speaker-led training events and may include informal sessions. The events will be a mix of online and face to face events.

Content

One of the main factors in successfully solving a mechanics problem involving forces is drawing a good force diagram.

This seems to be an area that many students find difficult, even when we as teachers think we've done a good job teaching this.

In the course of the meeting we will cover

• Pedagogy for teaching understanding of forces and drawing a force diagram that will help students make sense of the problem
• How do we know if students have understood these concepts
• Sharing ideas/resources for the teaching of forces 

The session aims to be interactive as much as possible while online. 

Toby Rome who is the course lead for AMSP's Teaching Mechanics course will be leading the session.

Materials and Equipment

The session will be remote and will take place on the Big Blue Button platform, as such you will need a laptop/desktop computer or other internet enabled device. 

The AMSP uses Big Blue Button (BBB), which is an online conferencing system that allows participants to collaborate in real time. It is easy to use and has features which enable a tutor and participants to communicate live on-line by using audio, video, instant messaging and, if needed, writing on a shared virtual whiteboard.

We will set up the classroom and send you the classroom link, via e-mail, at 4pm with the meeting starting at 4:15pm, because of this please sign up via the link even if you are not entirely sure you can attend.

BBB is designed to be used on a variety of platforms but you will get the best experience via a desktop or laptop computer, running either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox as the browser. Note: Internet Explorer and Edge are not suitable currently.

You will need a webcam, microphone and headphones/speakers to take engage fully. Though headphone are sufficient.

Have a pen and paper to hand for taking part with some of the questions

Don’t forget to bring your own tea and biscuits!