Site Guide
What and why?
I have included these pages to help the user get a feel both for the rationale and aims behind this site, how you can expect it to develop and how you might use it. I truly believe that web publishing is the way forward for education because it is so much more versatile than its predecessors and alternatives. This site is an organic resource that changes, develops and improves regularly. The user has a great input in to all of that as well, helping to correct errors and making suggestions for improvement. Ultimately, the site will develop the way the users want it to. This is not really the type of resource the exists as much in education as I believe it should. Most resources are sold as finished and static. This site is neither!
Selected Pages
Often, when I am trying to show people some quick examples of what is on the site, I find it helpful to have a quick selection of pages available. Right now, I know that lots of people are looking at the IB Asia Pacific conference in Hong Kong and so I have out the following together for that purpose.
New Syllabus
The word is out! What do you need to know and how are we helping?You can now find the guides for the the two new mathematics courses on MYIB at this link (you will need your password for access). They...
Applications SL Scheme of Work
The design and elements of the course actually allow for a good deal of creativity in designing a course. For that reason, I can see a number of useful schemes of work where teachers vary according to...
Exam Revision Packs
Helping students to prepare for the exams!NEW - The Calculus pack has landed - This page is the home of a series of revision packs designed for the final stages of the course. We all run our courses differently,...
Marked Projects
The aim of these pages is provide some examples for teachers of projects that have been completed, the marks they were awarded and the justification for those marks. The more such examples we have seen,...
Gender gap index
This page is an activity to start a statistical investigation in to the Global gender gap index. The activity is related to the Sustainable development goal number 5 - Gender Equality. This is a very...
Visual Sequences
'Get out the multilink cubes and literally build an understanding of arithmetic sequences'Build a visual representation of the sequence 1, 5, 9, 13. What does it look like? What have your colleagues build?...
The 6 million question
Big numbers present us with a real challenge! How do we understand their size and the significance of what they represent? Once numbers get past a certain size this gets harder and harder. One, two, three,...
A quick tour
This screencast below hopefully gives you a really quick idea of what is here and how to find it.
What's here?
Getting Started
This Getting Started section offers a whole host of information, tips and advice for teachers old and new to halep them run, manage and get the most out of the course. There is a building section on the role of the IB core, information and administration, schemes of work and more.
Assessment
There is a huge section on Assessment split in to 2 for Internal and External. There is a huge amount of advice and resources to hep teachers and students a like to thoroughly understand what is is expected from them in terms of assessment. There is everything from elaboration on criteria and marked examples, to help with managing assessment in general and revision resources.
Topic Overview
The website has a major section on each of the main topic headings. It starts with an overview of the elements involved, tips for teaching and attention to common pitfalls and misconceptions. This section then breaks down in to the three subheadings listed below. See Geometry & Trig for an example.
Engaging activities
Each topic from the syllabus has a page for 'teaching ideas'. these are tried and tested classroom activities that are designed to promote mathematical thinking and reasoning. The activities are designed to engage students with mathematics and help them make discoveries on the own. See this pqge L,S&P Teaching Ideas for an example.
Practice activities
In combination with the more expansive activities above, each topic has a page with worksheets and practice questions - with answers to hep students consolidate knowledge and techniques. There is a building collection of IB style exam questions on these pages too. Also on these pages there is a collection of 'Fill in the gap notes' that are a nice half way step that can help with record keeping and revision. See N & A Practice for an example.
Internet Guide
I am constantly scouring the internet for interesting and relevant articles and tools that can help with the teaching of these modules. Each topic has a page where this collection builds daily. See L, S & P Internet Guide for an example.
Author and Aims
I believe passionately that teaching mathematics at any level is all about creating opportunities for students to make their own discoveries and links. Whilst I know from experience that this is a tall order to have as an ideal, I believe we should all be aspiring to this as much as possible to try and bring mathematics to fore and work against the stigma that has grown up around mathematics in school.
With this in mind, I find that the best resources I have ever been given or found are the ones that help me to create these opportunities. Rich, mathematical tasks that engage people from the outset and draw as much as they can on previous knowledge and intuition. These are all worth a hundred textbooks and worksheets, they are more effective than 'How to videos' of the kind found on the Khan Academy and other similar sites. Dont get me wrong, all of these resources can be very valuable, but just not as valuable as a good task.
It is my main aim as a teacher to put as many of these tasks as I can in to my schemes of work, whilst balancing them with the demands of less visionary assessment tools. This is the main aim of this website for maths studies students and 
Teachmathematics.net that I work on with my two colleagues in Toulouse for students from 11 to 16. Despite the huge increase in internet based resources for mathematics, I still find rich activities in relatively short supply. Invariably, the richness needs to be added by the teachers! I hope I can help to bring richness to your classrooms with this website.
Of course, along with this, I accept there is a need for many resources of a different kind, all of which have a role in the whole education of students. I hope, ultimately, to be providing users with everything they could need to help them and their students through this course.
A little about me... I live and work near Toulouse in South West France and am lucky enough to work in a very well resourced and forward thinking school where my working conditions are fabulous. I am a full time practising teacher of students from 11 to 18 and I love my job. Like everyone else, I am generally overworked and stressed out by the everyday of the job. Along side that of course, my main job is being a husband and father to my lovely wife and four beautiful children! I am grateful to my family for their support of these projects and particularly my wife Lianne for the technical support she gives as well!
Site Development
What can you expect from this site in the future, how can you be involved.
Activity page template
This is one of the pages that is most often used throughout the site. This just gives you an overbiew of what you can expect to find on those pages.