Task Centre News March 2010

384 tasks placed in schools during February. 321,960 placed since the project began in July 1992. We offer an email news service from each of the three key projects linked to this site. If you would like to receive updates from the Task Centre Project, Maths300 or Calculating Changes send an email to doug@blackdouglas.com.au: In the subject line write Subscribe Maths. In the body of message state which projects you want to subscribe to, or simply write Subscribe All. Add your name and preferred email address. Please feel free to distribute this information.

In this month's News you will find: Maths on the Move Melbourne Working Mathematically with Infants PD in Pakenham Tasks of the Month Task 114, Where Is The Rectangle? Task 117, 12 Counters Task 119, Police Line Up

• Maths on the Move: Melbourne
  Critical Agendas is a professional development organisation which offers educational conferences that are relevant, appropriate, applicable to the modern classroom. They are very experienced at organising and delivering seminars across a wide range of educational subjects.

  We are delighted to have formed an arrangement with Critical Agendas which will deliver several Maths on the Move workshops around Melbourne in the merry month of May. The programme is:

  • May 10 ... Sunshine Convention Centre
         Working Mathematically with Very Little
  • May 14 ... The Buckingham International, Highett
         Working Mathematically in Chance & Measurement
  • May 17 ... Overnewton Castle Conference Centre
         Working Like a Mathematician
  • May 18 ... Overnewton Castle Conference Centre
         Multiplication, Meaning & Times Tables
  • May 19 ... Overnewton Castle Conference Centre
         Fractions in a Fraction of the Time

  Different titles, different content, but all within one framework:

  All children can learn to work like a mathematician in happy, healthy, cheerful, productive, inspiring classrooms.

  Choose one session, some sessions or all sessions. Sessions are limited to workshop size, so first in best dressed. May is not that far away, so this is not an opportunity to put off until later.

  All bookings are being handled by Critical Agendas as explained in the PDF fliers linked below.

• Working Mathematically with Infants
  Your were introduced to this fabulous new resource for infant teachers (K - 2) in the February eNews. Integrating WMI with Maths With Attitude kits means that it is now possible to support a Working Mathematically curriculum from the first day of school to the last day of Year 10.

  Congratulations to Buninyong Primary School which was the first current member of Calculating Changes to order the manual and CD-ROM and take advantage of the almost half price offer on Poly Plug which has been introduced to celebrate the release of WMI. With over 100 extra PP in the school, there must be all sorts of exciting learning going on there.

  Congratulations also to Maramba Primary School which was first to become a new member by taking advantage of the 25% discount on both the membership and the WMI kit. To their credit they have also arranged professional development sessions to help them make best use of their new teaching resources.

  Working Mathematically with Infants includes 44 Threaded Activities and 48 Investigations planned across 6 semesters of number work from Year K to Year 2. That's 10 weeks of planned, integrated, hands-on number sense development in each semester; all within the context of all children learning to work like a mathematician. The program leaves room for you to include the best of what you already do and integrates with the use of Maths With Attitude in Year 3 and beyond.

  The release of WMI happens to coincide with publication by the Mathematical Association UK, in its journal Primary Mathematics, of an article titled "Aha! Teaching Maths is Simple" which is built around the work of Calculating Changes. This article is included as one of the many extras on the WMI CD-ROM. Other extras include presentations from teachers involved in Engineering 'aha' Moments workshops, who detail 'aha' moments in teaching that they experienced through the professional development and how those moments have influenced their teaching, their school and, most importantly, the children's learning.

  To explore Working Mathematically with Infants further, including reading the first section of the manual, see the Link List below.

• PD in Pakenham
  We were recently invited to spend a day with the teachers of St. Patrick's Primary School, Pakenham, to help them install their new kit of 100 tasks. Nothing unusual about that. Lots of schools do it ... nothing unusual that is, except for the way they came to their decision to take this path.

  The school is a feeder for St. Francis Xavier College, Berwick, where Joe Marsiglio and the team have set up their own Task Centre. Students at the college are timetabled into the centre once a cycle, but Joe is not only interested in supporting better maths education in his own school. Since the establishment of his centre, Joe has invited teachers from feeder schools to bring their classes to the Task Centre for a 'try before you buy' session. Then he has supported visiting teachers with a suitcase of tasks that they borrow to use back at school for a while - great idea!

  Rosa Mitchell, Deputy Principal and Numeracy Leader at St. Pat's told me at the workshop that when she experienced the level of energy and excitement about mathematics displayed by her Year s 5 & 6 children on return from SFX, she simply had to bring tasks into her school. With the great team I met there on the day, I am sure that energy will already be spreading across the school.

  Learn more about the St. Francis Xavier College program in the Link List below.

• Tasks of the Month
  Three new cameos this month.
  • Where Is The Rectangle? a game of hide and seek on a geoboard where the objective is to discover the corner co-ordinates of a hidden rectangle.
  • 12 Counters develops understanding of the chances associated with the sum of two dice by asking players to place their counters in any of 12 empty boxes. The player who removes all their counters first is the winner.
  • Police Line Up exercises considerable logical reasoning by offering clues to the order in which suspects are arranged in a police line up. Students seem to like the storyshell and find it much easier to work this sort of problem when they are able to touch the card characters.
      
  
  Click a photo to access its cameo, or access all current cameos through the Link List below.

• Link List
  • MOTM Workshops May 10 & 14 ... Flier (PDF)
  • MOTM Workshops May 17 - 19 ... Flier (PDF)
  • These workshop are also recorded in the Maths on the Move 2010 MOTM Courses list
  • Working Mathematically with Infants
  • Maths With Attitude
  • Introducing a Task Centre at SFX, Berwick
  • Task Cameo Library (111 tasks listed)

• Did you miss February?
  If so you missed information about:
  1. Working Mathematically articles in Britain
  2. Task Cameo additions
  3. Swedish Maths Factories
  4. Iceberg Information about two Tasks of the Month (Tasks 103, 104)
  5. ...and more...

Keep smiling,
Doug.

Previous News

Follow this link to Task Centre Home page.