Pathways School, Noida: Maths Department

THE MATHS PROGRAMME AT PATHWAYS

A major focus of the Maths programme is to ensure that our students love Math. Mathematical thinking is an essential part of everyone’s education and we develop activities which get every level of student to see its beauty, the relevance of Maths in everyday life and the joys of mathematical challenges. With the right approach, every student is a Mathematician. In this piece we feature how Maths works at different levels of the school.

Primary School

In our recent unit of Exploration, the students were made to do some exploration in math with shapes. For this we had a guest lesson conducted by our Middle School Principal and Math teacher- Mrs. Sunanda Sandhir. The students played around with many shapes and folded them into halves . They figured out the lines of symmetry, learnt to record their work in a group and also figured that in some polygons the number of lines of symmetry is equal to the number of lines in the shape.

We also have a Math corner where equipment supporting our units is displayed other than the stuff that the students keep adding to it normally. These may be math games and Jodo Gyan shapes for them to play around with.

Students watching Flipchart on shapes under the unit symmetry

Group work: recording their observations

Middle School

“Whoever said maths was all about numbers must stand corrected, actually maths is numbers and loads of fun with them! Maths is not about a board, and some weird symbols scribbled along the edges, which no one even gets! What really maths is—is what happens in a room which has a label in black, bold letters which proudly reads the word ‘Maths Room’ (Form 6 student)

Last week, we had an adventure with Factors. We were all asked to sit in groups of 4 and each group was given one packet of blocks. This was surely a task, as Miss Vandana called out some numbers we had to quickly arrange the blocks according to the factors of each number. Each round had a different winner which was decided by keeping mind the time the group took and of course the answers. We had soon enough learnt factors and it was on our fingertips by now. So we decided to aim on Integers. It was a new topic which was introduced with a new activity. After learning the basics in class we went downstairs to the open-atrium and excitedly sat on the stairs. The game begun with the instructions each child would be given a chance to roll a dice twice, the number which came the second time would be taken as an integer, keeping that in mind a student had to go to the stairs keeping a ‘0’ as their starting point then we had to subtract/add the numbers by stepping either down the stairs or up. The staircase on which you finally land would be your answer. We all had our chances and were so sad when the lesson got over but we were excited too as we knew they will be another maths class with another activity waiting for us…”

by Mehak D

Grade 9 is going crazy!

“If you compress a gas it gets hot. The more you compress it the hotter it gets. How hot does a bike pump gets….”

Grade 9 IGCSE group is getting a great mental workout in analytical skills through application problems in mathematics. Just when they learn the numerical and feel relieved for ‘topic is over’, they come face to face with the problems that demand analyses of the situation. Being a specialty of IGCSE, they have to master it and hence…go through mental gymnastics!

Chinese Multiplication

Product of 45 and 256. Note the order of the numerals in 45 is reversed down the left column. The carry step of the multiplication can be performed at the final stage of the calculation (in bold), returning the final product of 45 × 256 = 11520.

Multiplication Reinvented – glimpse of a typical activity in grade 9.

Students are also exposed to investigations/project based problems whereby they evolve mathematical formulae and generalize the given task.

Rationalize… (No, not √5+2 divided by √5-2) MATH STUDIES!

Aakanksha Gupta

A math studies student being asked “You took math studies!? Why?!” is a very frequent occurrence.

My aim is not to contradict the fact that Math is something that is very much necessary in an individual’s life, regardless of whether that person is an accountant or a historian. I do very much agree with this statement and I can cite a few instances to prove it, such as: While shopping or predicting future stock market prices or an author calculating the number of copies of a book that have been sold in a year or counting down the days till a certain event or even telling the time.

In Math studies, we study sets, intensive statistics, trigonometry, geometry, introductory calculus, etc. We even cover topics that the other two math levels do not study about, such as logic.
Therefore, even if a student is not particularly fond of math and does not want to take it up in the future, IB will encourage that student to enjoy the subject by taking Math studies.

Application of Maths

Does math have any use?

Students of grade 11 were sent into the field to interview an insurance agent to understand insurance and the role of Probability in it. We started with a group brain storm session to understand the task properly. This was followed by them (with help of their parents) identifying an insurance agent to interview. They were also expected to do research and collate information based on a task sheet given to understand Probability and its role in the field of insurance. They had to have a record of conversation with the agent. And write an analysis in the end of their experience. They were asked to pace out the work on their own and give me a timeline. I went back and forth on email with them after each task. They had to submit a draft and then the final work.

While everyone enjoyed the experience and wants more (!), we all felt the necessity for greater planning in detail before venturing out again.