This week in Maths we have been exploring how mathematicians often work in groups to discuss and problem solve. They actually need to build their skills to be able to do this and so do we. So we got practising, working in groups where each member of the group had a specific role--recorder, materials keeper, facilitator and reporter. This helped us to all be accountable and have something very specific to contribute to the group's functioning.
Our first task was to discuss, capturing everyone's ideas, what things we do and do not like others to do or say when working in a group, in particular when working on maths. Then we collated everyone's ideas and created our own agreed ways of working so that we can be the best mathematicians we can be.
Once we had our agreed ways of working and understanding of the things we find helpful when working in a group, we got down to some maths where we were visualising and identifying patterns inside numbers. Jo Boaler, one of the authors of Mindset in Mathematics, says "What is enchanting about numbers is that they are all made up of different arrangements, have different factors, can be seen differently, and have their own intricate system to be explored."
So we explored numbers through visual representations and began to see emerging patterns. We noticed, among other things that 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28 and 32 all have clusters of 4 inside them! We noticed that numbers like 7, 11, 13, 17, and 19 don't have any clusters of numbers in them!
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