Task Centre News

December 2002

• Hard Evidence
  Four years of enthusiastic and stimulating work with teachers in the Tasmanian INISSS Project (Improving Numeracy for Indigenous Secondary School Students) has produced remarkable results for the students. The teachers set out to 'close the gap' between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. They have achieved that ... and much, much more, including remarkable improvement in LITERACY ... within a framework of Working Mathematically.

  Read a descriptive summary and/or the official research summary (released on December 2nd) in the Do Tasks Work? link in the index frame on the left.

• An Old Friend (almost) Comes Home
  Karen Palmer was involved in the trialing of the first Task Centre Kit for Aboriginal Students during 1993. Karen is no longer in teaching, but, out of the blue on December 1st, we received this email:

  Hi Doug,
  On a boring Sunday afternoon I did a search for my name on the Internet... and there I was, on your site! It was an evaluation I'd done for a dice game in the Mathematics Task Centres, long ago when I was a teacher at Numbulwar school.

  I loved those task centres. They were excellent resources, especially with the Aboriginal kids I worked with. It almost made me miss teaching when I loaded the site! Almost...

  You can read Karen's review of Dice Differences (now also a Maths300 lesson) in the Do Tasks Work? link on the left.

• Maths on the Move
  For details of the current series - programs, venues and costs - see the Maths on the Move link on the left.
  Note: To support schools feeling that 'end of year pressure', the closing date for applications has been moved back to December 18th.

  Series 1: Melbourne - places are still available at each venue. Series 2: Tasmania - 74 places (mostly in Hobart) have been reserved by the Aboriginal Education Unit for schools involved in their projects. Other places are still available (especially in Burnie and Launceston), but you need to act now to secure places for your school.
  Project schools should contact Sue Davis or Doug Williams ASAP, as listed in the link, to specify your preferred course.

• Maths With Attitude
  We admit it. We are running a little behind schedule; but there are good reasons. We have been waiting on the development of two new tasks and two new Maths300 lessons which we felt we just couldn't leave out.
  • The tasks were released at the end of November (see November News below). They are both Chance and Data tasks.
  • The lessons will be another week or two. They will both add to the Maths300 store of exciting fractions lessons. They are also based on tasks and are names to reflect that, ie: What's It Worth? (Task 75, Lesson 99) and Rod Mats (Task 202, Lesson 144).
  • What's It Worth? will introduce a new and challenging piece of software that operates at multiple levels.
  We now expect the four Year 5 & 6 units to be available at the end of January for the beginning of the 2003 Australian school year. Keep up to date through the Resources link on the left.

• Look in the Working Mathematically link on the left for a copy of the Working Mathematically Anthem, and a link to the Keynote Address, Learning to Work Like a Mathematician, for the text of the session in which the anthem was first performed.

• Addition of the Point Symmetry Pack to the Resources link on the left. This resource is provided by the Mathematical Association of Victoria and we recommend it as a Middle Years problem solving approach to developing an understanding of Rotational Symmetry.

Keep smiling,
Doug.

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