MURDER MYSTERY

1. MURDER MYSTERY Our lesson study experience

2. What prompted us • NEW GCSE specifications • Worried about teaching applications • Looking for ways to improve teaching of problem solving • Looking for ways to facilitate more group work in lessons

3. www.ncetm.org.uk Lesson study (or "public lessons") is an action research technique for groups of teachers that takes a completely different approach to lesson observation

4. THE LESSON STUDY MODEL The lesson study project provides a detailed guide to the Lesson Study process based on six steps: • Form a lesson study group • Develop learning goals • Plan the lesson • Gather evidence of learning • Analyse the evidence • Repeat the process

5. NEXT STEP • Applied to be part of the NCETM lesson study project • Went to a launch meeting in Birmingham with the Deputy Principal • Committed to joining the NCETM learning community and producing a written report at the end of the project for the NCETM portal.

6. OUR LESSON STUDY GROUP • Volunteers from the department • 6 maths teachers • Met after school approximately every 3 weeks initially then more regularly just before the lesson

7. DEVELOP LEARNING GOALS • Already determined by the initial concerns about the future • Decided to focus on a problem solving activity that students could work on in groups • Homework for teachers was to bring a suitable activity to the next meeting • 6 ideas brought to meeting and all discussed – decided on a number bond activity but……

8. Started gossiping about what we had done over the weekend and one member of staff talked about a murder csi programmed he had watched. Lightbulb moment – we could do a murder mystery based on this programme.

9. PLANNING THE LESSON • Planned the basic “storyline”. • Each teacher given a task to complete • Met regularly to put resources together and check it worked as a lesson • Thought about how we would organise the students and which groups we would use • Made learning packs to give to each group

10. THE LESSON • Chose two parallel year 8 set 2 classes (2 of 5) to deliver the lesson to • As students entered the room we gave them a letter and told them to sit at the table with that letter • Set the scene then let them get on with it • Each teacher observed a group of students

11. STRUCTURE OF THE LESSON • Gave each group a folder with all they needed in it (and some things they did not necessarily need) • Let them organise themselves to solve the task (tasks varied in level of difficulty) • 10 minutes before the end of the lesson paired up groups to share their findings • Randomly selected groups using dice to share their findings (pretended they were in a court and giving evidence)

12. THE CASE OF THE MYSTERY MURDER The 30th February 2010 saw Crediton carpeted in thick snow. Fortunately all the buses were able to run so school went on as normal. What was not normal was the discovery soon after 5.30pm of the dead body of Simone Jarvis. Ivor Mop, a cleaner, found the body lying outside the Maths block with an arrow through the heart. Surrounding the body were six scientific calculators and several cm3 blocks.

13. Police were immediately called to the scene, arriving at 6.00pm. They immediately ascertained the temperature of the corpse and the angle at which the arrow had entered the body. The surrounding area was searched and several footprints were discovered in the snow. Police then returned to the station taking with them records of staff. They also removed and took away the arrow, which they discovered on extraction, to be marked with the letters “MM”

14. Can you help the police discover the identity of the murderer and the motive. There are 3 tasks to complete and then you need to piece together the evidence to find the murderer. Task 1: Establish the time of death Task 2: Identify the owners of the different footprints Task 3: Find the distance the murderer was from the victim when the arrow was fired

15. YOUR TASK • Having listened to the introduction to the lesson look at the resources and try to anticipate how students will • Use the resources • Work as a group • Questions they will ask • Questions you may want to ask the students

16. Analysing the Evidence • Met up the evening of the lesson and shared our observations • Amended worksheets and some of the structure • Analysed the learning • Shared our own feelings about having observed students learning • Planned the next delivery of the lesson

17. Repeated the process • Delivered the lesson again to a parallel class the following week • Met up again after the lesson and analysed the whole experience • Very positive experience and all involved greatly valued having had the opportunity to observe learning in this way and to work collaboratively on planning a lesson

18. Next steps • Involve the whole department • Analysed the GCSE papers and identified 3 areas of weakness (indices; transformations and negative numbers) • 6 people involved split into pairs and now working with 2 people who had not been involved previously • Developing lessons on the 3 areas of weakness

19. And next….. • Maintain within department on an annual basis • One project a year – very time and energy consuming so not realistic to run more than one • Cascade the lesson study model to other departments in the College

20. Quotes from teachers involved • “WOW. That was a real privilege to be able to watch kids learn” • “Oh my God, I did not know we could have so much fun in a maths classroom together” • “I can’t believe that our students could work so well together in groups” • “It was brilliant to have the time to work together planning a lesson. I got some really good teaching ideas from the others”