By using tools that provide dynamic imagery – such as Autograph, Desmos, and GeoGebra – students are better supported in accessing mathematical ideas that can be difficult to understand. These tools can help them work on problems that would otherwise be impractical or inefficient to tackle. They’ll also help them develop skills they may need for further study and in the workplace.

Ideally, the use of technology should be fully embedded in maths teaching and learning, with all students having access to mathematical and statistical graphing tools throughout their study of maths.

The choice of which technologies to use is clearly for you and your school or college to decide. However, we can help you to make the best use of them with our Key Stage 3-4 professional development and resources on the use of technology.

Calculators

Familiarity with using a calculator is a particularly important skill for Year 8 students to acquire. With this in mind, we’ve developed materials for you, that provide an opportunity for your students to practise using a calculator, and at the same time, to reinforce key aspects of the maths curriculum.

Year 7 Get Calculating lesson plans

Our Year 7 Get Calculating lesson plans focus on developing the use of calculators in a range of mathematical contexts. There’s a related series of lesson plans for Year 6.

Find these resources

Calculator Crunch resources

Our Calculator Crunch resources are designed to provide Year 7 students with extra practice in key areas of the maths curriculum, whilst also developing their confidence with using calculators.

Find these resources

Perhaps you could coordinate making using calculators a theme for Key Stage 2-3 transition days with your feeder primary schools?

GeoGebra

MEI is a GeoGebra Institute. We support teachers and students by providing:

• face-to-face and online professional development for teachers
• support for GeoGebra users
• presentations at events

Please get in touch if you’d like to find out more.

Desmos

Desmos Activities offer highly engaging ways for students to interact with maths and for teachers to gain insights into their students’ thinking. We have curated a set of activities by Desmos that we think are suitable for use when teaching Key Stage 3 maths. This collection can be seen on the Desmos Teacher website.

Equatio

Equatio by Texthelp makes maths accessible and visual to students. With Desmos built in, teachers can model and create accessible resources for students. Equatio creates opportunities for students to visually share their methods and approaches in maths.

Equatio is free for teachers. Find out more here

Exploring Data with Technology

Exploring Data with Technology is a collection of activities aimed at mathematics students in Key Stage 3 or 4. The aim of the activities is to give students an experience of exploring real data sets using a statistics program.

All the activities use CODAP (Common Online Data Analysis Platform). This web-based data analysis tool is designed for school students.

Further support

Is there room for improvement in the way your department uses technology to support students of all abilities and at all levels?

A one-day course from our technology specialists will make a real difference.

If you’d like any advice on using technology in your teaching, please get in touch.