By Nick Broome
I met with a tutor from Motor Vehicle (Adam Finch) whom I am currently coaching. He shared with me how he uses maths in his lessons and it seemed so good, I thought I would share it.
In class this teacher sets students a task which has an industry-related time allocated to it. The student carries out the task and times it. If the students takes longer to achieve the task than allowed by the industry, he/she records that and the % difference. The tutor then discusses reasons for the disparity in times and guides the student on how to narrow the gap. This data is entered onto a white board which has been pre-populated with industry-specific job related time slots. Once this has been fulfilled, students then work out a bill for the work.
Maths is further developed by inspiring the students to ask their maths teachers to explain a mathematical problem related to their core subject area, for example ‘compression-ratios.’ This demonstrates how well maths is not only embedded in this tutor’s lessons, but also how he gets students to further their knowledge by linking their core work within maths lessons. Similarly English is also being developed in terms of persuasive writing. For example, one student is creating a piece of such writing to convince someone of the merits of a particular type of motorcycle. English is used throughout as students need to understand technology, the tasks to be completed and be able to write about them for assessment.