How the designed resource facilitates quality teaching and learning

The SMART board resource we designed facilitates quality teaching and learning in several ways.  Firstly, the deep knowledge of the lessons is presented through a range of mediums: pictures, diagrams, interactive graphs and games in addition to text.  The aim of these is to enhance the students’ deep understanding.   Killen (2005) suggests that in order for students to develop deep understanding, students must be given appropriate examples, detailed explanations, opportunities to think about what they are doing as well as testing of their understanding with appropriate feedback.  Our teaching resources abound in detailed and clear explanations with corresponding examples.  We have also inserted various questions, games and quizzes with instantaneous feedback throughout our resources in order to assess the students’ deep understanding.  We have inserted “think” boxes throughout the resource encouraging the students to develop higher-order thinking.  These questions require the students to go beyond simply remembering, understanding and applying the knowledge to analysing and reasoning further about the mathematical concepts. The interactive nature of the resource and the games that have been incorporated are designed to increase student engagement. In the second coordinate geometry lesson (Gradient), the students have to research real-life applications of the mathematical concepts they have learned, thus adding significance to the lessons.