Task Centre News

December 2001

• What Works?
  We are delighted to report that recent months have seen a renewed interest in using tasks. Many schools are commenting that they are looking for a new curriculum direction. Apparently, for many students, something is not working with the traditional textbook, chalk and talk approach.
  The schools that contact us are thinking about using tasks in conjunction with Maths300 and the textbook as the core of an intellectually challenging curriculum that helps students learn to work like a mathematician:
  • Maths300 supports teachers with extensive lessons plans which model working like a mathematician.
  • Tasks offer an invitation to students to apply the model for themselves.
  • Texts are used to practise and refine the skills of a mathematician.
• Implementing Maths300
  Time is what teachers claim they most lack. As consultants we need to make it as easy as possible for teachers to effectively use Maths300 lessons and tasks. Charles Lovitt tells us one successful way he has found.

  At one school recently, I ran a workshop on Algebra at Year 8. The school has a traditional content based list of algebra topics to work through, but wanted to supplement this with six of the Maths 300 algebra lessons such as Line Up (Lesson 21/ Task 11), Garden Beds (16/147), Crossing the River (23/173), Painted Rods (39/152), Painted Cubes (38/160) and Game of 31 (27/86).

  I found it very effective to print out these 6 lessons, put them into plastic sleeves and present them to the school in a binder folder. It provided just the practical level of support they needed, and provided one model for how to go to the site to get the printed hard copies of particular lessons.

  So now I have prepared for myself three such folders, with cover pages to illustrate particular themes. Producing these at a workshop seems to have the instant effect of converting the sometime perception of an abstract internet resource into very practical imagery. It seems such a simple idea but has turned out to be very effective.

  It adds another layer of pedagogical opportunity to lay out the folders side by side with the tasks associate with any of the lessons.

• New Tasks
  The latest changes to the collection of tasks are the addition of Task 218, Guessing Colours Game, and the replacement of Task 18, Four In A Row, with Task 18, Same Or Different. These changes have been made to the Task Catalogue available in the Documents link opposite.
  Guessing Colours Game is for younger students and is deliberately designed so that negative numbers appear. It develops from the Calculating Changes project where experience with calculators means that students are coming across negative numbers much earlier than secondary school. As one teacher commented at a recent in-service day:

  My first grade students have no problem with negative numbers; they just call them underground numbers.

  Four In A Row was replaced because it was too much like Row Points (Task 9). Same Or Different is a wonderful Chance & Data task that leads to a stunningly surprising connection with the Triangle Numbers. This task is supported and extended by a lesson of the same name recently added to Maths300. The software that comes with the lesson simulates the task and provides the data that leads to the Triangle Numbers.
• News From Denver
  I have recently returned from two more weeks working with the wonderful teachers in the Englewood District of Denver. Sally Collins has continued leadership in the district by meeting with her K-12 maths committee on a regular basis and building the agenda around the exploration of a particular task. Over several months they explored Crazy Animals (#102), Heads & Legs (#14), String Shapes (a Maths300 lesson but not a task), Estimating Fractions (#205 - Peg & Tape Fractions) and Crossing The River (#173). The process involved Sally leading the way by researching the task on Maths300 and then workshopping it at the meeting.
  In the ensuing discussion each teacher suggested ways the task could be used at their level from K-12. Following the meeting, teachers were expected to work the task with students at their level and return next meeting with a report that included student work samples. This material was the focus of dialogue which began each subsequent meeting.
  It became very clear that in 'doing' the task with their students, the committee members came to understand it at a much deeper level.
  Capitalising on this expanding understanding, Sally organised the committee into pairs, each of which offered a workshop on one task at the State Maths Teachers conference, and included time to explore others. Each teacher collected student samples from their classrooms. The pair combined their experiences (often from different levels) to prepare their workshop. There were therefore six separate workshops at the state conference carrying the same theme and all backed with genuine classroom experience. From small seeds do great educational trees grow.
• Bishop Elementary, Denver
  At Bishop Elementary school the 'task tutoring' system is bringing results on a number of fronts. Students in Grade 5 learn a task under the guidance of their teachers and then become responsible for exploring it with younger students. The system as been in place for over a year and now, the older 'tutor students' are more and more heard to ask questions rather than to tell answers. They are adopting the facilitator role very firmly.
  Also Betty Moody, who leads the program (as an unpaid, retired teacher volunteer would you believe!) is finding that she can now finish each lesson with a purposeful debrief of the strategies used by the various groups in the tutored class.
  Perhaps best of all, the students who have passed to the next class as the academic year changes are coming across tasks they were tutored in when younger and are looking upon them as old friends. Far from the prediction that some people might make about students being bored because they have 'done' the task before, the response is more often great I like this one and it is approached with new vigour.
• News From England
  Andy Martin is working on two Gifted and Talented projects in conjunction with Andy Wain, Ian Harrison & Matt Skoss (Australia), Per Berggren (Sweden) and several talented British teachers. The international contacts were set up through the Task Centre Project. Andy's letter to his team, below, says it all. I am certain he would be interested in communicating about this with other Task Centre Consultants. You can find Andy's email address in the Contacts link on the right. (Is yours there?!?)

  Project 1: Home Lending
  There are 35 pupils at Thorne Grammar, Doncaster, using the tasks from the Library Lending Kit (Lower Secondary) from mid-January. These pupils will work on a task at home with parental support. They will need other pupils who have worked on the same tasks, for them to send their solutions to, or to ask for help because they are stuck. I would like, if possible, an e-mail address at each of your schools where these pupils can send their letters. I will provide a similar address at Thorne for initial replies. Parents at Thorne are happy for their children to e-mail other pupils directly once they have established somebody who has worked on the same material. If you have, or know, a teacher who would like to link their class(es) with this cohort even better. This project is set to run for 3 months and we hope that each child will have tried 10 of the 20 tasks. I would like each of these pupils to have made at least one international e-mail link.

  Project 2: Supporting Maths300
  We have 6 schools each with a Starting Maths300 & Tasks kit. The schools will work through 5 of these tasks, in school time with one class each, during January-May 2002. We are going to issue contact e-mail addresses between the 6 schools for pupils to share their work. If we can add an international dimension to this project it would be even better. I am meeting the Heads of Mathematics to finalise a common list of tasks and to develop the addresses. Can anybody help? However, you might get up to 30 responses from each of the 6 schools!

Keep smiling,
Doug.

Follow this link to Task Centre Home Base Welcome Page & Index.