By jove, I think she's got it!

Waiting for the clocks to go back, last night I think I totally understood the nature of our first MA module assignment.

I was so worried that I didn't 'get it', that I was considering emailing the course tutor, but then was further worried, that I would look incompetent, idiotic, an imbecile. So I had decided to wait until the next session and try to clarify what we're supposed to be doing there.

BUT - having read a paper we had been given, and a few scribbled notes that I had made, I now am sure I understand the nature of the task.

We are to take a problem, and analyse HOW it is to be solved. How different groups of people approach it, what diversionary routes could be taken.

I'm even more sold on using 'The Chessboard Problem', purely because it is one that I am very familiar with - having used it with pupils as a problem solving task many times over. I have ideas in my head as to how I can analyse it - get different groups to solve and record the methods. By different groups I mean younger, older, top sets, bottom sets, even A level classes and teachers / other adults.

The trouble with this choice is that I think we are meant to stretch ourselves mathematically, and this doesn't really do that. There is a definitive answer, a definitive algebraic equation for the general term.

But however many other problems I consider, I keep going back to 'The Chessboard Problem'. I'll take it along with me to the next session and see how it is received.