Follow this link to Task Centre Home Base Welcome Page & Index.
| 824 tasks placed in schools during October. Around 261,148 placed since the project began in June 1992. |
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We have some stock of the discontinued lines on the shelf and they are now available at substantial discount. Prices listed are for sales within Australia only. Clients from beyond Australia please ask for a quote. Prices include GST and delivery in Australia.
Discontinued Replacement UnitsTo order, fax your purchase order made out to Black Douglas Professional Education Services to (03) 9727 4644. State the items you want and add the words 'discontinued lines'. To talk further about this offer, ring (03) 9726 8316 or email:
- Now available at $299 each (were $357.50)
- Each kit is made up of 20 tasks and a manual of extensive notes and investigation sheets.
- 20 x Pattern & Algebra Upper Primary
(NB: The 20 tasks in this kit include doubles of three tasks.)- 4 x Pattern & Algebra Lower Secondary
- 18 x Computation Upper Primary
- 25 x Computation Lower Secondary
Discontinued Mixed Media Unit 2: Fractions in Action
- Now available at $275 each (were $302.50)
- Each kit is made up of 10 tasks, two manuals of extensive notes and investigation sheets and software on floppy disk.
- The software is for Windows only and is an earlier version of Fraction Estimation which is now on Maths300.
- The software is sold with a Campus Licence giving the purchaser the right to use it on any number of computers on the one physical campus.
- There are 25 of these kits available.
NOTE: The Chance & Data Replacement Unit which is designed for Upper Primary and Lower Secondary classes, and Mixed Media Unit 1, Points of View, remain on our Resources list as examples of two different unit plans which integrate hands-on problem solving into the mathematics curriculum. Maths With Attitude requires Maths300 Membership. These Units do not.
However not all tasks have, or will have, companion lessons on Maths300. Information also - perhaps even more so - needs to be recorded about these. In the Iceberg Information link on the left, we have added a sample dossier for Task 49, Take A Chance, and a blank Word document with sections, headings and layout in the format of this example. You might find it a useful starting point for your own dossier format.
Section A of the Handbook (20 pages) looks at Task Centres in Summary. This section is now available as an Acrobat Reader (PDF) file of 800Kb. Read it, print it or download it from this link now, or find it any time in the Documents link on the left.
As part of his teaching allotment, Andy is now sharing a class with a colleague and using tasks to extend and develop the course work being presented by his partner. It is a Year 8 class and many of the students were taught by Andy through the Home Lending approach in Year 7. He is spending as much as six lessons on one task and is currently working on Task 62, 4 & 20 Blackbirds. Andy's email about developments is below, however, it is interesting that the first suspicion we had that something exciting was happening was an email a week earlier from one of his resourceful students. Gareth had done some Internet searching, discovered our web site, found my email address and was asking for some guidance with the task. Whatever Andy and the team are doing, someone in the class seems keen.
I have been assigned a class in Year 8 that I share with another colleague. Since many of the students were taught by me in Year 7 and participated in the Home Lending Project. I wanted to diversify their curriculum in Year 8. My colleague teaches the conventional scheme of work and in the lesson with me I explore the iceberg aspect of the tasks and try to develop applications of the work done with my colleague.[Note: Paul Elliot is a Thorne student and his work is in the Sphinx Album link on the left.]Hence, when she was developing construction skills with triangles and introducing symmetry I worked on Sphinx. We were able to investigate rotation and reflection symmetries using two sphinx pieces and try to draw our findings! Now that she has moved to algebra I extended the sphinx idea of Paul Elliot's formula and introduced 4 & 20 Blackbirds as a way of showing how equations can be used to explain conditions. The class have now met simultaneous equations with 9 unknowns and can show we have more than one solution!
By spending at least 6 lessons on each task I can keep linking to prior learning, so with Blackbirds we will soon examine solutions that are rotations of previous known solutions etc.
Andy Martin has organised a successful eBuddy network before and wants to do so again. PLEASE HELP. There are many benefits which accrue apart from young mathematicians talking with each other.
Keep smiling,
Doug.