3-Read Friday #119

Beautiful books, single-prompt activities, and the 200th Maths Gems

Here are three blog posts I found interesting this week:

1. Why I hate ‘beautiful books’ by David Didau

Three years ago, I wrote a post called “The Myth of Copying Things Down”. In that post, I made the point that neat books are a poor proxy for understanding. David articulates this point, and much more, beautifully. David argues that the moment leaders signal what they want to see, teachers rationally perform to it. Neat pages can conceal shallow thinking; scruffy ones can hold hard graft. What we’re really rewarding, he suggests, might not be what we think.

2. How Henri Picciotto Designs Great Activities by Michael Pershan

Anyone who spends time thinking about task design will love this closer look at what makes a resource actually work in a classroom. Michael argues that the quiet genius of Henri’s activities lies in three design choices — a single set of instructions that still generates rich mathematics, a stance poised between open exploration and explicit teaching, and a practising teacher’s eye for what genuinely works with real students. The examples are where it clicks.

3. 5 Maths Gems #200 by Jo Morgan

A milestone edition from one of the most reliably useful maths blogs going — 200 gems posts is a staggering run, and this one’s as generous as ever. Jo rounds up her latest haul for maths teachers — self-testing key-facts sheets, a slick new graphing tool, the finally-complete NCETM Key Stage 4 mastery materials, and a couple of self-marking worksheet sites worth a look. It’s a browse-and-grab post, and there’s plenty in here worth stealing.

Have a great weekend!
Craig

🏃🏻‍♂️Before you go, have you… 🏃🏻‍♂️

… checked out my brand-new book series: The Tips for Teachers guides to…

And checked out my Ultimate Retrieval Tool page on my Mr Barton Maths website