News

August 2024 In this edition of the News you will find:   What Teachers Say   Calculating Changes Activity      ... Visual=Number (Members)   Get to Know a Cameo      ... Soma Cube 1      ... Magic Hexagon Please feel free to distribute this information.

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• What Teachers Say

  Since the previous issue in late June, three more schools have joined the many already creating their own Task Library with the help of the eTask Package. Welcome to those schools and thanks to these key teachers who got the ball rolling.

  • Terence Langlands, Woodend School, New Zealand
    Terence received his eTasks at the end of Term 2 and went to work over the holidays preparing the first set for his Year 5/6. Terence writes:

    Thanks again Doug! I'm really excited the kids will love this! ... I have got the first set of tasks to start Term 3 ready!

  • Carolyn Abraham, Prospect High School, Tasmania
    Carolyn was the first teacher in the world to purchase eTasks when they became available in July 2017. She was teaching at Deloraine High School at the time and has recently transferred to a new post at Prospect. Carolyn writes:

    I didn't know we were the first ever to organise the eTask package! How exciting.

    We loved using the resources at Deloraine and it is embedded in their practice now so will continue now I have left. The Prospect team are excited to start on this journey now and I am looking forward to supporting all the team, teachers and students to work like mathematicians.

    I have downloaded all the resources, thank you for organising this so promptly.

  • Julie Sessions, Roots and Wings Microschool, Arizona, USA
    Julie runs a Microschool for small classes of all ages. She said she found Mathematics Centre from recommendations given at a Peter Liljedahl workshop on Building Thinking Classrooms.
    At first she rang for a chat about what might be useful in her education space, then she followed up by researching suggestions. Later that day she ordered an eTask Package and Working Mathematically with Infants manual. A few days after that a set of Poly Plug went off to Arizona. Julie writes:

    I did get a moment to look at the items you emailed. I felt like a child in a toy box. I watched one of your videos. Thank you so much. Your professionalism and communication has been exceptional. I have loved working with you. You have made this process so easy and understandable.

    Another week or so passed during which Julie was digging deeper into Mathematics Centre. The result is a complete set of Maths With Attitude eManuals is about to be digitally delivered to her school. Roots and Wings Microschool now have documented support for developing a K-10 integrated and sequenced core curriculum around the objective of learning to work like a mathematician in fascinating, captivating and absorbing classrooms. Curriculum support that works with any official syllabus document anywhere.

• Calculating Changes Activity

  Visual=Number (1-8 Member)
  

  Four students each made the same pattern with their Poly Plug then united them to make this picture. It was in Gay Lynch's class at Herdsman's Cove Primary in Tasmania. As the children made the visually appealing pattern, a sentence from one of our professional development workshops came back to her: Wherever there is a visual pattern there is a number pattern; and wherever there is a number pattern there is a visual pattern. So the class began to investigate. First they counted the number of plugs in each concentric square. They realised they were 8 apart. But I nearly fell over when one of my students said that they were 'four times numbers'. So they started looking for fours and found ... 4 x 9, 4 x 7, ...

  If you are looking for an opportunity to do a bit of mathematics together in your team meeting, try this:

  • Investigate further with a partner.
  • Based on your investigation, prepare 3 stimulus questions that might encourage your students to dig into this pattern.
  • Write each question on a strip of paper torn from a folded piece of A4.
  • Join another pair and compare your question sets.
  • Discuss, discard repeats, sift, sort and order as appropriate using any categories that occur to you.
  • Join another group of four and repeat the process.
  • When you're ready, produce a team list of refined questions. Leave a space with the heading Learning From Kids.
  • Take the team questions with you to try as appropriate with your class.
  • Bring all your outcomes together at the next team meeting.

  You might like to send us photos, comments or criticisms for a future eNews. Calculating Changes Members can find more in the Link List below.

  We'll give the last word to Gay:

  I know not all my students were with me on this investigation, but they all did know that we were doing it because:

  • one of their classmates had made the suggestion, and
  • when you see patterns in shapes you can find patterns in the numbers that come from them.

  Did I mention that Gay's class was Year 1?

• Get to Know a Cameo

  Task 105, Soma Cube 1
  

  This puzzle is as famous in three dimensions as tangrams is in two. By taking students back to the design of the pieces themselves, the task opens the door to the many spatial challenges that have been constructed around it. The need to record the pieces - they are data in the puzzle - is an opportunity to use questions such as: Can you find a way to sketch these pieces so that someone else could make them from your drawing? Could you use this paper (isometric dot paper - supplied) which is what architects use for making flat drawings appear 3D?

  Perhaps rather than 'teaching' how to do isometric drawing when it turns up in the curriculum documents, this task can be used as a captivating introduction that promotes the question Would you like to learn how ...?.

  The cameo includes a brief history of the development of the puzzle and all the solutions. No, not all the solutions. Students still have to work out the tunnel for themselves. In the eTask Package this task is in the 'easy to make' set because it only requires linking cubes which are in almost all maths storerooms.

  Task 190, Magic Hexagon
  

  Simply stated: Place all the counters on the hexagon grid so that every line adds to the same number. Easy to start, especially with the counters, but this puzzle is undoubtedly one of the most difficult in the Task Library. No excuse is offered for that. Challenges are a mathematician's work and if they don't want to tackle a particular challenge they don't have to. For students, the difficulty of the task is acknowledged by printing hints on the card, and accepting the challenge is encouraged in big letters asking them to cover the hints before they begin.

  Students are also supported by the fact that mathematicians don't expect to solve a problem immediately. If a problem resolves that quickly then it wasn't much of a problem in the first place. The same goes for students learning to work like a mathematician. Magic Hexagon is not likely to be solved in one sitting - it will need to be revisited - hence the need for a journal. Already we can see several reasons why the task belongs in a curriculum focussed on learning to work like a mathematician. The cameo includes support for teachers wanting to help students uncover a pathway to solution, and of course the solution (which is thought to be unique) is there too.

  In the eTask Package this task is in the 'easy to make' set because it only requires 19 counters and spending a little time writing 19 numerals with a permanent marker. Counters and permanent markers can be found in almost every maths storeroom and office.

Link List eTask Package Working Mathematically with Infants Poly Plug Maths With Attitude Visual=Number Soma Cube 1 Magic Hexagon Task Library Maths At Home Task Cameo Library Task Cameo Content Finder Calculating Changes Calculating Changes Content Finder Calculating Changes Year Level Finder Picture Puzzles Order Form Did you miss the Previous News? If so you missed information about: Poly Plug in Stock Calculating Changes Activities ... Ten Friends, I'm Odd: You're Even Get to Know a Cameo ... Unseen Triangles, Decimals With A Tape

Did You Know? You can Search Mathematics Centre. Our Site Map acts as a Table of Contents to help you find what you need in Mathematics Centre. You can find photos of every task using the Task Library. You can find tasks by content using the Task Cameo Content Finder. You can create your own Task Library in a professional learning context with the eTask Package. Calculating Changes offers Content Finder & Year Level Finder tools. You can find tasks coded by Year Level and Curriculum Strand in the Task Centre Catalogue. (PDF file) You can search for lessons by Year Level, Curriculum Strand, Lesson Features & Keyword at Maths300. You can connect Tasks to their Maths300 companion lesson using Tasks & Maths300. (PDF file) Excel version provided by Pymble Ladies' College also links each Task to its Maths With Attitude content strand. All these links, and more, appear in Working with Mathematics Centre. (PDF file)