I was pointed to a fascinating talk this morning by a California maths teacher who nicely illustrates how spoon-fed learning from textbooks destroys pupil engagement and creativity.

The principles here can he applied way beyond maths; here’s a science teacher who has experienced a similar class buzz from unstructured problem solving.

Lot’s of teachers on his blog commented that they loved the idea, but they just didn’t have the preparation time. That’s where Teachable comes in…

Fed up of the textbook and the questions it poses year after year. Even the latest software is unlikely to have included recent local or world events. Challenge yourself to apply “The Credit Crunch” to as many aspects of maths as possible. When you have devised a cunning and inventive lesson, send it in to Teachable to share with others.

To get you in the mood, have a look at “The Credit Crunch Song”:

Here are some Credit Crunch issues to get you started:

• House prices down our way – data gathering and handling
• Renting or buying – calculating yields and basic cash flow
• Jobs and unemployment – calculating how much you have to earn to be better off than collecting unemployment benefit. You could draw a graph to show the intersect.
• Cars (buying and selling) – how about calculating percentage commission for the seller?
• The Budget & Cost cutting – even your lowest ability class can probably do better than Gordon at this!

Hopefully this should give some food for thought. The list is by no means exhaustive. For those of you who aren’t interested in the Credit Crunch, what about the New Flu Pandemic from Mexico!
Finally, there are a selection of animations from Microsoft Office Clipart (search MONEY) – could be handy to save time for your Powerpoints.