Lesson 2 – Live CHAT with experts

Lesson Objectives

  • Live CHAT with experts who use maths in their jobs.
  • Send more questions in ASK.
  • Explore how maths is applied in everyday life.
  • Broaden the students’ perceptions of maths and the careers it can lead to.

Lesson Resources

Starter: 5 minutes

Recap on the previous lesson, reminding the students of the experts they read about on the website.
Explain that today’s live chat lesson is an opportunity for the students to get to know the experts better, in real time.

Note: The experts are busy and working full time. There are usually around three online for each chat, so try to manage the class’s expectations. The important thing is that they get to connect with the experts and find out they are human too. If students were hoping to chat with someone specific, encourage them to post their question(s) to them in ASK instead.

Activity 1: 35 minutes

  • All students log in to secrets.iamuk.ddev.site
  • Live chat with the experts with students working as individuals, pairs or in small groups.
    • Tell students there will be a moderator in the chat who can remove inappropriate comments and ban disruptive pupils
    • Remind students to tag their messages by clicking on the experts name before sending a question
    • Log in using your teacher account to remove innapropriate comments and temporarily ban students
    • Teachers can download a copy of the transcript when the chat ends

Extend: ask specific questions to the experts about their roles.

Plenary: 10 minutes

Are there any questions students didn’t get to ask or didn’t get answered? If so, spend a couple of minutes posting them in ASK.

Revisit the mind map created in lesson one.

Remind the students of the discussion question: ‘when you think of a mathematician, what words come to mind?
Ask the students if they have any new words they would like to add following the chat. You can add these words onto the mind map using a different colour pen.

Note – we would love to see your finished mind maps (with ‘before’ and ‘after’ colour key) and share them on our website.
Send a photo to support@mangorol.la

Suggested Homework

Choose one of the experts to research in more depth.
Find out more about their role: research an issue that came up in the live chat or consider how future developments might affect that area of work. Post a question about this issue in ASK.