Summer Course Number Three-Maths beyond Number-Hibernia College

August 9, 2014
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Maths beyond Number:
Hello everyone,
I have finished my third and final on-line Hibernia CPD course at last! As requested, I will review the course for you.
I chose to study ‘Maths beyond Number’ because I enjoy teaching maths.  I do home tuition with many children in maths, and I am always looking for new ideas and new ways of explaining concepts.  I always find that I have one way of teaching a concept which works perfectly with one child but doesn’t work for the next. This can be rather daunting and frustrating, so I hoped this course might offer me fresh insight and help in the area of teaching maths. 
Similar to English in nature, maths is a very technical subject to teach. Therefore, it is essential to have the solid groundings of the curriculum in place before you attempt to teach it. Take renaming for example. I once heard that for children, moving on to the hundreds after tens and units, is the equivalent of us trying to figure out problems of hundreds of thousands. Maths can be a tricky subject to learn, and a tricky subject to teach. Take for example in subbing. You must pick up where the teacher left off, so it is essential to know every single aspect of the curriculum, at all class levels, from renaming to long division.  This is where the tough part of teaching comes in. What does one do when the whole class but one or two understand the topic? When do you move on? When do you know for sure that they understand, and won’t forget in a few days? I had lots of questions before starting this course!
My main reasons for choosing this course therefore, were to give me new ideas and ways of teaching maths, to aid my teaching of maths in home tuition, and to give me extra confidence. I want to know that I can walk in and pick up exactly where the teacher stopped whilst subbing. I do a lot of my subbing in multi-grade classrooms. Teaching maths to four classes isn’t always easy, especially when all classes are on different topics. It can be rather overwhelming, but if you use the correct strategies, it will fall into place. 
I studied ‘Maths Strategies for Teaching Mathematics in the Primary School’ with Hibernia College last summer, so this time I chose ‘Maths beyond Number’. The course covered all strands but Number. It gave an overview of the curriculum objectives for each class, and many useful activities and strategies to use in the classroom, including two sample maths trails! The course really refreshed the maths curriculum for me, and I feel much more confident about teaching the subject as a result. 
Here is a list of what is involved in the course:
Five on-line lessons,
Contributions to the forum,
A reflective learning log.
So out of the three courses I did with Hibernia this summer, which was my favourite? I would have to say the Infant Education, Literacy across the Curriculum in Infants one.
Valerie

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