Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Independent maths in a classroom setting

I feel as though I've read a thread about this kind of issue in the past, but I can't find it now - pointers welcome.

Executive summary: I'm looking for tips, gotchas and BTDTs for how to make a situation work in which DS6 will have to do his own maths in a classroom of people doing other stuff on a regular basis.

Background: DS6 is about (in Sept) to enter his third year of school. He has finished the school's usual maths curriculum. There are no sensible "bus him to the next school" options (even if they'd work for him pace-wise and socially).

His class will be small (14) so it's reasonable to expect his teacher to notice whether he's on task and redirect him if not, but it isn't reasonable to expect her to teach him much maths one-to-one, even if she'd be comfortable with the material. I don't know her yet, but she might not ever have seen some of the maths he needs to learn. DH and I can do whatever teaching is needed out of school, but we need a plan for in school.

We discussed "where next?" with his last-year teacher at the end of term, and agreed that the most important thing for this year is that he practises working on hard problems, with learning new material as a secondary aim.

Hard problems is the trickier thing to make work. I'm hoping he may be able to use Alcumus in class. Finding problems for him to do is easy; my concern is what happens when he gets stuck. Of course, if he can get fairly independent about this, that's excellent, but I worry that he may just stare into space, and if that happens regularly then this strand will get dumped, whereas it's really what he needs intellectually. Alcumus has the possibility to give up and get a worked solution, which is something.

New material: he's at the stage of filling in gaps in GCSE-level syllabuses, so we have (again after discussion with last year's teacher) bought a couple of textbooks, with the idea that he could have one to use in class reasonably independently. I'm less worried about this, although there are still practical points that'll need discussion with his teacher, like how it gets decided which questions he should do and when he can go on to another topic.

I'd like to have some thought-through ideas to take into the meeting we'll obviously need to have with his new teacher, and especially to anticipate any problems... comments?

My son was given math independent of his classmates by going online. Everyday when the class started math, he went to the computer in the corner. His math was checked at the end of the day by the teacher. The few times he had trouble, the gifted teacher helped him during their normal meetings. It worked well for him, but he is really reliable for independent study.

Can I ask some more about what material this was, esp. what the learning objectives were? New material, or challenging problems? What I'm wondering is: in writing "the few times he had trouble" are you saying that the work he was doing was generally straightforward for him (in which case I suppose the point would have been that it was teaching him material that was new to him, but not hard for him) or are you saying that he did regularly meet problems that were challenging enough for him not to be able to see how to approach them, that he had to think hard about for a while, but that he could usually get through that process without help? It may be that in wanting the latter for DS I'm asking for the moon, but if your son has had it that would be encouraging!

Thanks for your reply, CFK, discouraging though it is :-) I do hear what you say, but at a high level I just don't see that there's any alternative. Acceleration might have been a partial solution last year, but he now really is* (at least in what he knows, although not always in how well he problem-solves) well beyond any class in the school, so there's nowhere to send him. (He maybe has enough left to learn in the syllabus for exams people here take at 16 to keep him busy for this coming year, provided he spends most of his time on hard problems.)

It may be that the message I should take away is that we're trying to do something hard here, and if it doesn't work we shouldn't beat ourselves up. Fallback should be that he does something somehow worthwhile in that time, he's not miserable, and we do maths at home, I suppose!

*in maths I mean! Another part of the story is that his writing is, I think, age-appropriate on a good day.

Wow, ColinsMum -- Your ds sounds impressive. Good luck with everything...
Some thoughts -- is there a computer lab or library or some place he could go to during his "math" time to do independent work? Maybe not math work, though, if you're looking for something challenging. Maybe some sort of applied math type thing -- programming or engineering type games? And then do math at home, perhaps with a tutor? Does your ds write proofs? That might type of thing might be a nice challenge?

ColinsMum,

One of the problems with the "hard problems" approach is that he'll figure out the way to solve the problem type and they won't be hard anymore. It's a great place to start, but someone will need to be constantly ahead of him finding a new "hard type".

Clay's idea of application sounds wonderful. Perhaps it's time to focus on Physics.

There are such places, but I don't think there's anywhere that's routinely supervised, and I don't think they (or I!) would be that keen on a 6yo being regularly unsupervised. Maybe an idea for in a few years' time. It's true he could just do something else in maths time, but it seems a bit of an admission of defeat! He does enjoy programming and writing proofs (natural deduction proof trees - is that what you meant? I'm surprised it would occur to anyone else as a possibility, but maybe I shouldn't be :-) but if he's going to do genuinely challenging things in either mode, we're back at the problem of his lacking the maturity to deal with the challenges without any input. He could of course just read (about maths or about something else), and there would be worse ways of spending the time...

ETA: maths at home is fine, yes, and no tutor needed, as DH and I are mathematical and he doesn't as yet have any problem learning from us.

That's not as hard as you'd think, for example because there are many different maths competitions with past papers available. They, of course, give assorted problems and try to come up with new problem-shapes often. Alcumus too is good at mixing up question types.

Indeed it is - he's chemistry-mad currently (half way through ALEKS chemistry, and to my astonishment just read Sam Kean's The Disappearing Spoon with great pleasure*) but he also enjoys physics. These are good ideas, but I don't think they make the problem go away - he'd still be doing things on his own, and would still either be unchallenged or have to deal with challenges without significant teacher input. Well, I suppose that's it: he has to learn to do that!

*I thoroughly recommend this book, btw

Indeed it is - he's chemistry-mad currently (half way through ALEKS chemistry, and to my astonishment just read Sam Kean's The Disappearing Spoon with great pleasure*) but he also enjoys physics. These are good ideas, but I don't think they make the problem go away - he'd still be doing things on his own, and would still either be unchallenged or have to deal with challenges without significant teacher input. Well, I suppose that's it: he has to learn to do that![/quote]

Could he participate in an online class? He would still get support, and it may not matter that he is significantly younger than other students. They might not even know.

He was working in ALEKS and for the most part didn't run into anything really hard. My son is one that can see something brand new, look at the little explanation blurg and he's got it.

On rare occasion he would run into somehitng he needed a little extra help with. The GT teacher was also resposible for setting up quizzes and monitoring the results of the assessments when they popped up.

We did logic and problem based stuff at home to keep the wheels greased.