Site: | OpenLearn Create |
Course: | Active teaching and learning for Africa (7): Numeracy across the curriculum |
Book: | Training guide |
Printed by: | Guest user |
Date: | Monday, 17 February 2025, 9:24 PM |
Supporting learners to develop skills in numeracy is everyone’s responsibility. Being able to recognise and use number skills fluently is important for learners’ job prospects. Hence, teachers in ALL subjects should take any opportunity to show that numeracy is important and enable learners to practise using those skills in different contexts. Seeing numeracy outside the classroom makes its importance clear and offers opportunities to develop an understanding of numbers and to practise numeracy skills.
The resources in this course will help you to:
The activities in these resources are designed for you to try in your Teacher Group Meetings (TGMs) and then to use them in your lessons. The classroom examples in these resources will give you some ideas on how to adapt the activities for your lessons, and how to use active teaching and learning to develop numeracy skills.
The aim of these resources is not to show you how to TEACH numeracy, but to give ideas on how you can SUPPORT numeracy across the curriculum in your lessons. Work with your colleagues and discuss with them how you could adapt the ideas for different lessons. It is a good idea to keep a separate section in your Teacher Notebook, where you can write down any ideas you have and activities you try, and then share them with your colleagues in the TGMs. If you don’t feel very confident in your own numeracy skills, have a look at these TESSA Numeracy resources and try some of the activities with a colleague.
Activity 7.1: Finding numeracy everywhereWorking individually, think through the kinds of numeracy that occur in daily life. Try to list ten ideas. Now share your ideas with other teachers and make a list on a board of all the ideas that the group has come up with. Now consider subject areas other than mathematics. Make a list of the kinds of numeracy that occur in every subject. Examples might be:
See Resource 3 for more ideas. Compare the lists. Which daily life numeracy skills are used in several subjects? Which might only be used in mathematics and perhaps science? Consider how some of the list of everyday numeracy ideas could be part of every lesson, so that learners become confident and skilled in their use. |
Activity 7.2: Building a numeracy rich environmentWork in pairs to consider how you could make your classroom a numeracy rich environment. For example, you could have:
A number line marked in hundreds
Make a list of all the ideas you can think of and then write one down in your Teacher Notebook that you can commit to using in your classroom before the next TGM. |
Classroom Example 7.1: Increasing number sense in all childrenA primary school wanted to make sure that all their children developed good number sense at least for numbers under a hundred. The school set up a series of games which the children would enjoy playing in lessons across the curriculum. The school decided that once the children understood the rules of the games, the teachers would observe what was happening. By observing the various games, teachers would be able to pick out who understood numbers of all sizes well and who needed more help. Over the course of a week, the children worked in different groups so that the teachers could see if some children were copying others and did not really understand, and which children had a good understanding and needed to be challenged more. The games the school used were:
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Activity 7.3: Using games to increase number sensePick out two games to play together and play the games according to the rules. Consider these points:
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Activity 7.4: Asking questions that prompt numerical thinkingThink about a lesson you have taught recently in any subject. Consider which of the following questions you could have used with a little re-phrasing. Pick out at least five and then discuss with a partner how using those questions could help learners to develop their numerical thinking.
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Activity 7.5: Developing fluency with big numbersConsider what kinds of numbers your learners need to understand to confidently use them in all curriculum areas. For example, they will need small decimals in science, dates and numbers to thousands in history, and use very big numbers and percentages in geography. This activity, based on dates and events in history, can be designed to help learners to explore the numbers they come across in any subject area. Make a set of cards on paper with important events and dates that your learners are working on (see Resource 1). Cut them out and order them with oldest dated event first and newest dated event last. What might learners find challenging if they were doing this activity? For a class activity, write the cards out on large pieces of cardboard so that they can be read at a distance and ask for twenty volunteers to hold them. Then ask all the class to help get the dates in order. Note who struggles with reading and understanding the numbers. In your TGM, discuss how you might use a similar set of cards to develop fluency with big or very small (decimal) numbers in teaching a subject other than history. Work together as a group to produce various sets of cards to use in your lessons in the next week. |
The last activity has two purposes. The first is to show the learners that numeracy can help them understand ideas in real life. The second is to help them develop their numerical vocabulary.
Activity 7.6: Developing a numerical vocabularyThere are excellent ideas for working in groups available to you on this TESSA Numeracy site, such as Case Study 2 and Activity 2, as well as the activities shown below. Here is another idea that can work well, as it relates numeracy to real life. Complete this activity in groups of three. Discuss the following:
Discuss how you might develop a similar set of cards to help your learners to develop numerical vocabulary about day-to-day measures, such as mass (for example, two kilos of flour) or capacity (for example, five litres of water) or money. Work together as a group to produce various sets of cards that you can use in your lessons. |
By using the ideas in these TGM activities, you will help your learners to develop their numeracy in all subjects and to understand how important numeracy is.
Anglo-Zulu War 1879 |
The Battle of Mogadishu 1993 |
Zambia defeats Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in the Africa Cup of Nations 2012 |
Tacky’s War 1760 |
Zanzibar Revolution 1964 |
Dr Sam Nujoma becomes President of Namibia 1990 |
Nelson Mandela becomes President of South Africa 1994 |
The rise of the Ashanti Kingdom in West Africa 1700 |
First Sudanese civil war starts 1955 |
Britain defeats Germany and Italy at El Alamein in Egypt 1942 |
The second Ivorian civil war starts 2010 |
The Anglo-Ashanti war starts 1823 |
First Afro-Asian writers’ conference 1958 |
The second Italo-Abyssinian war starts 1935 |
The Arusha Declaration 1967 |
Nigeria becomes independent 1960 |
The Entebbe Raid 1976 |
The USA founds a colony for freed slaves in Liberia 1822 |
Kenya becomes independent 1963 |
Ghana becomes independent 1957 |
South Africa gains a democratic government 1994 |
Zimbabwe becomes independent 1980 |
Zambia becomes independent 1964 |
Mozambique becomes independent 1975 |
Table 1 Where or how do most accidents happen?
Murder and assault |
Aeroplane accidents |
Traffic accidents |
Terrorism |
Accidental poisoning |
Storms and earthquakes |
Accidents at school |
Accidents at home |
Accidents at work |
Influenza |
Table 2 Deaths from various causes in 2022 in one country
Murder and assault |
Aeroplane accidents |
Traffic accidents |
Terrorism |
Accidental poisoning |
Storms and earthquakes |
Accidents at school |
Accidents at home |
Accidents at work |
Influenza |
Subject |
Numeracy skills |
Literacy |
Using words associated with numeracy/maths Using comparisons to bring life to stories Understanding metre in poem |
Physical Education |
Measuring time, distance, height Counting Relative sizes of numbers (ordering) |
Science |
Graphs Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division Tally charts Sorting numbers Very big and very small numbers Conversion from metres to centimetres, minutes to seconds, kg to g Simple statistics such as calculating averages, mean, median and range Sustainability |
Geography |
Very large numbers, for example, distances, populations Time zones Graphs and measuring, for example, weather, rainfall, wind speed Understanding trends such as weather, population growth, and economic figures |
History |
Ordering dates Graphs of social trends Simple statistics, for example, averages and the comparison of times between dates |
Crafts/Technology |
Measuring Shapes 3D shapes construction Costing materials |
Languages |
Words associated with numeracy How much? How long? How many? |
Life skills |
Understanding risk and probability Understanding statistics reported in the news Understanding trends in data and making predictions Shopping Wages and taxation Economics Finance Interest rates Travel such as timetables and exchange rates |
Music |
Understanding different rhythms and beats Using numbers to understand why different genres sound so different |