One of my most favourite teaching positions has been as a one-to-one tutor in a multi academy trust. This role was exactly as it says on the label. Working one-to-one with learners getting ready to sit their GCSEs. What I loved about this was that I naturally inherited every teachers style and approach as the students were all taught by different teachers across the trust. I could often be presented with two students studying the same topic but tackling it in completely different ways. This kept me on my toes. One day we were doing ratio and I had a group of six in an after-school club and three of the six wanted to use the bucket method. The bucket method was new to me and it as I've only ever seen it in this multi-academy trust. It looks a little bit like this.
It's particularly fun when you were dividing large quantities a £10,000 into the ratio of shares...I was concerned at the size of the buckets we would need, but students were quite adept at using crosses to represent 100 circles to represent 1000 triangles to represent 50 and so on! It worked and it was brilliant! The learners in the multi academy trust could tackle any ratio sharing question using this method. When I moved into further education and resitters I was in the same situation in that I had a group of learner's and they've all been taught differently. Ratios one of those topics where once you get it, you get it! It is quite a powerful one to unlock as well. With a bit of humour and a tongue-in-cheek I often ask students do they use a bucket or do they use Adam to solve ratio problems cue puzzled looks! I say to all my learner's I don't care how you answer it as long as you answer it correctly can explain why you do things that way. As I have mentioned before, I say to all my learner's that if you have a way that works for you then that's the way you use! What I can offer you is an alternative way if you don't have a way to work things out that is solidly your own. Adam came about similarly to the Pythagoras SASSYLASS when I was looking for a quick win to help learners easily remember the steps of a ratio problem. I googled, as I always do and checked great maths teaching ideas and resourceaholic and tes and I can't remember where I saw ADAM but he has been with me ever since. Adam is nice because it includes a check as well to check the answers are correct!
It’s a nice way to remember the steps on how to solve. Generally students do these steps independently but most in my class enjoy having ADAM as a check that they have done it correctly. First step is to add the ratio parts together (doesn’t matter if it’s 2 or 3 part ratio!) then you divide the amount by your total. Third you multiply the parts back in and finally you add to check take a look at this example.
In my experience I have seen higher ability learners take to ADAM easier than lower ability. The opposite being true for bucket method. However, I don't try to categorise learner's into high and low ability, I just find a way that works. Adam is an ever-present force in my classroom and he’s not only displayed on my wall, I like to insert famous Adams into my lesson to remind them that they need Adam to solve this problem so for example we will be reviewing a complex problem solving paint and area problem it will require ratio at the first stage (you know one of those six mark questions) and as we're going through I will randomly pop up Adam Sandler or Adam Woodyatt or a famous Adam just to really stick it in their minds that they need to use Adam to solve this problem.
One thing I am a big fan of is an open door observation policy. We build observations up to being something serious and formal when actually it is a snapshot of what goes on in our classroom every day. Ideally before I observe someone I invite them into my classroom but all too often this happens afterwards instead. I have been fortunate enough to observe many maths teachers over the years, coincidentally many have been on ratio. Recently, in an observation of a newly qualified teacher, not all learners were making the required progress within the ratio lesson (this GCSE resit class hadn’t been streamed). I invited the NQT to observe me teaching ratio the following week. They were unaware of the bucket method and saw learners using 2 different methods in my lesson. Their main question to me was how do I manage 2 different methods. I explained that experience plays a part in that and I asked the NQT, what methods did they give their learners? The NQT took away ADAM and bucket and taught both methods to their mixed ability ratio class the following week and the learner feedback was amazing. So much so that one student passed me in the corridor and said “you know you saw us in maths and I couldn’t get it? Well we did it again and I ADAM it now, it’s well good!”
