Teaching Number Facts - A Teaching Strategy That Works

Teaching Number Facts

Honestly, is there anything more central to math success than knowing number facts?
If you are old like me, you will know full well the time and effort that went into ensuring all students know their numbers facts (or tables).

I believe it is as critical to math success today as it was years and years ago.
This is one of those teaching strategies that support active learning because the students are heavily involved in the learning process. It is a cracker of a lesson for regular teaching and relief teaching.
This lesson is great because

• it takes almost no preparation;


• it does not require any resources;


• it suits all grades and all student abilities.

How can you go wrong?

This is always the first lesson on my teaching day and the kids with whom I have regular contact now know what to expect.

I have modified the teaching strategies to include peer tutoring in the learning process.

I wanted to increase active engagement of students.

I tried it out when I was relief teaching with a group of year 6 students and it worked a treat.

It's not rocket science just old-fashioned number facts and old-fashioned teaching - well maybe not so old-fashioned teaching.

The lesson is prepared on PowerPoint.

Firstly the kids had to write up a table.

They were then presented with SET 1 which is a set of 10 number facts with an interval of 5 seconds between each fact. ie. 50 seconds for 10 facts.

After writing down their answers, the PowerPoint moved on to the answer screen. (I love it when pushing a button is one of the teaching strategies.)

The kids marked their own work and recorded both the sum and the answer all their incorrect answers.

Here is where I moved the learning process to include peer tutoring as one of the teaching strategies.
I paired a student who scored highly with a student who didn't. This small group worked within the classroom to learn the number facts.

The "peer" used any method they wanted to improve the performance of their "mentor".
The peer tutoring only went on for 3 minutes of so.

(Honestly, peer tutoring is one of my significant teaching strategies in the learning process.)
After the peer tutoring, we proceeded to the SET 2 - another 10 number facts with a space of 4 seconds.

And the cycle progressed. After each SET the kids moved into peer tutoring groups where the teaching of the number facts was strengthened.

It is actually amazing how much peer tutoring adds to the learning process. It is active learning at its best.

It really adds to the effectiveness of teaching.

A Singapore maths PR article by Dougles Chan - Search Engine Guru - The best SEO company in Singapore and globally.

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Free Teacher Resources - Improve Your Teaching Skills

I can imagine that as a teacher you have to know how to attract students' attention and to present the lesson as interactive as possible. In this way students get involve, they feel that they mean something and they become more receptive to the information presented during classes.

To be a good teacher nowadays is a real challenge but for the dedicated ones is something they enjoy doing as they want to improve their teaching techniques all the time. Free teacher resources available today makes it all so much easy. Do you remember the days you were a student? I do, but i don't like what i remember. The lessons were so long and boring as there was no interest from the teachers' side to make it more challenging.

We, the students, did not count much, the teacher would say the lesson but without any effort to make the subject of his teaching more attractive. However, today is a real competition to be the best so every teacher is looking for new things that would help to keep the audience attention.

Students today seem more interested in learning and that is not only because every generation is getting smarter but also because teachers are really trying to teach, to get the message out there and to leave a mark in every student's life. In my school years i had only a few teachers that were really meant to do this.

They had patience with every student and try to explain everything as good as possible. Well those teachers i still remember today and i also remember a lot of their teachings even if they have nothing to do with my work today.

Today teachers are trying to make their lessons as interesting as possible and they achieve that by bringing materials to help illustrate the message included in every lesson.

Some of the resources can be found on a lot of internet sites containing free teacher resources. Some of the materials that could be used are: worksheets, flash cards, different clip arts, some magnets and everything else that may help. There are some educational videos available out there that could any lesson pleasant and very informative.

 I remember that in my beginning school years i really liked my English classes and that was because the lesson was very well structured: first the teachers would present us some facts, after that we used to watch some video about the same subject and in the end we were having some interactive activities like completing some worksheets or answering some question like in a contest or you can say quizzing tasks.

In these free teacher resources sites can also be found with lesson ideas for every domain: math, literature, computers, music, arts, science, etc. And you can also find some ideas for home assignments, science experiments, some educational contests, all meant to keep the student interested.
Nowadays teachers have all the help they need to make teaching fun and to have attractive and informative lessons to benefit the learning process of the students.

A Singapore math PR article by Dougles Chan - Search Engine Guru - The best SEO company in Singapore and globally.

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Using A Three Phase Generator For Single Phase Loads

As an industrial generator rental business owner, I always cringe when a customer tells me that they want to power a single phase load with one of my three phase generators. It is an inefficient operation for both the electricity producing generator as well as the (typically diesel) engine. It is however, entirely possible and very easy for anyone with a measure of mechanical and mathematical aptitude to accomplish. Fair warning though, if you do your math incorrectly, you can easily end up causing expensive damage to the generator, and the engine can suffer as well.

You can't buy a dedicated 1 phase generator that will produce more than about 10kw. It would be cost prohibitive to build and market because beyond that level, 3 phase machines are smaller and cheaper to make, and only a relatively small number of people would need more than 10kw single phase anyway.

Sometimes the generator manufacturer will stamp a larger generator as 1 phase, but it is actually a 3 phase generator that has been rewired and derated to power single phase loads. People who require more than 10kw usually have a three phase electrical service installed as it is much more efficient. Mostly I've found the folks who require larger than 10kw single phase to be farmers who power grain dryers or barns, and occasionally machine shops or small restaurants that need temporary power.

THE GENERATOR MATH...

You NEED to derate the generator when powering single phase loads. Lets say the nameplate on the machine labels it as a 208 volt, 3 phase, 20 kw generator. You will need to subtract 1/3 of the nameplate kw to get a single phase rating. In this case 13.2 kw is your single phase output. Keep it below this level and you're golden.

THE DANGERS...

If you use more than 13.2 kw, the machine will still work great all the way up until the engine begins to labor. That's going to happen at around 20 kw. The problem is that in order to produce single phase power, only 2 of the 3 windings are used (that's why we derated by 1/3). Those 2 windings are now doing the work of 3. The generator will not immediately fail, but heat will most definitely build up in the windings as more amps than rated are forced through them. This will lead to premature failure of the generator.

Assuming a diesel engine is used, there is no real danger operating at single phase, but diesel engines work best between 50% and 90% capacity. Anything below a 10kw load (on our example) will cause a condition called wet stacking to occur. This causes a loss of output ability, oil leakage around exhaust components, oil burning, and sometimes soot coming out the exhaust. Use a load bank or increase the load to capacity to correct this condition.

A Singapore math educational article by Dougles Chan - Search Engine Guru - The best SEO company in Singapore and globally.

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