News

October 2010 In this month's News you will find:   Sicherman Dice: a new task   Maths300 ETuTE: a new book   Updates to Maths300   Reflection on Home School Lending   Reflection on Rote Learning   Tasks of the Month Task 116, Who Owns The Monkey? Task 118, Ice Cream Flavours

370 tasks placed in schools during September. 326,191 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. Browsing Hint Use the View/Zoom options of your browser to 'move' the page closer or further away. Ctrl +, Ctrl - and Ctrl 0.

Sicherman Dice As with all of our work, it keeps developing because teachers keep on contributing. Matthew Reames, St. Edmund's Junior School, England, put us onto this one. He writes: I have been looking at Sicherman Dice recently. These dice are evidently the only other set of dice using positive, non-zero integers to give the same possible outcomes as a pair of 'normal' cube dice. Rather than being the normal 1 to 6, these are two different dice, one numbered 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4 and the other numbered 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8.

I used these with Year 6 and 7 classes (aged about 10 and 11 this time of the year). In future lessons I would probably include this in the regular probability things, but this was one of those end-of-term lessons. We talked about the possible outcomes of flipping one coin, of rolling one number cube, then flipping two coins, and finally rolling two normal dice. We made an outcome grid for addition.

Then, I asked the class to find another set of dice that would give the same possible outcomes. When allowed to use zero or negative numbers, there are a huge (possibly infinite) number of possibilities. There was a lot of good discussion about this!

The next step was to limit the faces to positive integers only. Though this required a bit more guidance from me (and I eventually had to tell them the final combination), there was good discussion about what they knew some of the numbers had to be (for example, each cube had to have a 1 otherwise they could not make a 2).

All of this was leading up to some further activities on the TI Nspire handhelds we were borrowing. Discussion was about probability distribution and why, for a small number of rolls, the frequency graphs they made were so different but then got more and more identical as they increased the number of rolls. Anyway, I wasn't sure if you already had a task similar to this or not, but I thought it was worth passing along just in case. My classes certainly had some fun trying to figure it out and there was a lot of excellent maths discussion along the way.

So, now we have Sicherman Dice in the collection as an invitation to students to discover their special property. And with Matthew's email you have the outline of a whole class investigation using this task as a model of how to work like a mathematician. It has been listed in the Task Catalogue as Task 241. See Link List below

Maths300 ETuTE Our latest publication provides a framework for inhouse professional development based around exploring Maths300. Written in diary style with one stimulus question per page. 'Sound bite' format fits in well with the time pressures of modern teaching. Developed from electronic ETuTEs distributed to members from 2004. A content list and a year level list have been included. Stay in touch with your teaching craft as you explore Maths300 a little at a time. Be inspired to trial a lesson you hadn't thought of using before. Be encouraged to integrate lessons and tasks into your curriculum in a way that focuses on learning to work like a mathematician. For more information and how to order see Link List below. Updates to Maths300 Two lessons have been re-entered in the Lesson Library. They were somehow 'lost' when the new look site was released. They are: Lesson 70, Pick A Box, Years 5 - 8 Lesson 95, Domino Trails, Years K - 6

Pick A Box is back just in time for Christmas preparations - yes really! The story shell of the lesson is about the North wind messing up the arrangements of groups of presents and Santa's elves only remembering some of the criteria for resorting them. It is also explored in Maths300 ETuTE, as is Domino Trails, which makes an appearance in that book and the Working Mathematically with Infants kit.

Link List Mathematics Centre ... visit & bookmark Task Catalogue Maths300 ETuTE ..details & ordering Visit Maths300 Library Kit & Andy's reflections on home school lending Aaron Peeters: Reflections on Rote Learning Our Order Form (PDF file) Task Cameo Library (127 tasks listed) Did you miss September? If so you missed information about: Maths, maths, Maths With Attitude world Professional development developments. Upgrade to the Resources & Ordering page History of the Maths Mat MacMaths revealed Maths Not At The Movies ... a new web paper Iceberg Information about two Tasks of the Month (Tasks 109, 110) ...and more...

Did You Know? You can find tasks coded by Year Level and Curriculum Strand in the Task Centre Catalogue (PDF file). The Activities link of Calculating Changes offers Content Finder & Year Level Finder tools. Our Site Map acts as a Table of Contents to help you find what you need in Mathematics Centre. You can search for lessons by Year Level, Curriculum Strand, Lesson Features & Keyword at Maths300.

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