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Enhance teaching and learning with effective technology

Think Mentals 30/10/18

Technology is an increasingly important tool for teaching and learning, but it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that any technology is better than none. It’s been shown that technology can’t replace quality face-to-face teaching, but it can help take quality teaching to a new level (Elliott 2018, p. 308)¹. What classrooms need is effective technology that engages students and saves teachers time.

That’s why we’ve taken our friendly approach to mental computation and put it on a digital platform. You can now choose between the award-winning Think Mentals Student Workbooks and the new Think Mentals Digital Classroom.

Think Mentals Digital Classroom contains the friendly strategies and consistent structure of the Student Workbooks, with the added benefits of a digital platform. This effective technology can enhance teaching and learning in your classroom through:

Captivating teaching resources

Engage students and save time with the Think Mentals Digital Classroom teaching resources – forget having to find or make your own! The easy-to-understand videos demonstrate how to apply the weekly strategies. You can also use the stepped-out slideshows to explicitly teach and consolidate the application of each strategy.

Interactive student activities

Think Mentals Digital Classroom contains engaging activities with a variety of question types featuring a simple and intuitive interface. Students answer problems, identify patterns, show fractions, count coins, interpret graphs, measure objects and more – all on their devices!

Automatic marking 

Answers are marked as soon as they’re submitted, so students can see whether their answer is correct before moving to the next question. This means they can learn from their mistakes and self-correct as they progress through their questions. The time you save marking can be better used assisting struggling students or preparing for other subjects.

Real-time tracking

Monitor student progress and performance in real time with the Activity Tracker. It enables you to see how well students are understanding the strategies and general mental maths concepts as they are doing each activity. The Tracker highlights areas of strength and weakness in the class, allowing you to quickly and effectively identify student needs.

Collated class and student results

Throw out your mark book because class and individual portfolios capture results for you. Class assessment tables show whole-class results in an easy-to-read format that is ideal for reporting. Individual portfolios break down each student’s results across formative and summative tasks – perfect for parent–teacher interviews.

If you’d like to use this effective technology for your mental maths lessons, find out more about Think Mentals Digital Classroom, and sign up for a 30-day free trial.

References

1. Elliott, J 2018, ‘Using mobile technology for formative assessment in the classroom’, in AA Khan & S Umair (eds), Handbook of research on mobile devices and smart gadgets in K–12 education, IGI Global, Hershey, Pennsylvania, pp. 308-320.↩

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