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October 2012
In this month's News you will find:
Long Term Professional Development
Catholic Education Office Canberra Goulburn
Neerabup Primary School
New Video on Cube Tube
Did You Know?
Tasks of the Month
Task 151, Knight Swap
Task 152, Rod Mats
Please feel free to distribute this information.
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- Long Term Professional Development
Professional development over an extended period - several months, perhaps longer - is more likely to lead to continuing teacher growth and curriculum shift. Perhaps the outstanding example of this is outcomes of the INISSS Research. Shorter professional development programs have their value, but our experience suggests that it takes five or six PD experiences with the same focus to reach teachers through the cloud, crowd and clamour of daily school life so that the desired curriculum shift actually becomes everyday practice.
Through 2012 we have been involved in two such programs and some of their work is shared here. (See Link List below for more information.)
Catholic Education Office Canberra Goulburn
Initiated by Gina Galluzzo, Curriculum Development Office, the objective of this program is to support all schools across this very large diocese to build their curriculum around working like a mathematician. The program runs over six days in three sets of two days about a term apart and administrations in all schools have agreed to support the program.
2012 is the second year of the process and almost all participants are from primary schools. In 2011 the group was a mix of primary and secondary teachers. There are at least two participants from each school, although this isn't always possible in the smaller rural schools. Participants are representing the school and are expected to share their learning with colleagues. This year, participating schools were expected to belong to Calculating Changes and Maths300 and purchase 10 tasks and 10 Poly Plug.
Perhaps the developing success is best summarised by the caption and photograph opposite which are from a slide presentation to colleagues by Andrea de Carvalho, St. Peter & Paul Primary School, Garran.
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We're loving our journey so far with
'Working Like a Mathematician'! |
One direction of the course has been learning to use the three lives of a task. One of those lives is to extend a task through the use of an Investigation Guide. Teachers have written several and they have been shared with you through the Task Cameos of these tasks:
- Find My Pattern, Task 10, Leanne Bateman & Margy Carracher, St. Patrick's, Bega
- Plate Triangles, Task 28, Belinda Rayment, St. Francis of Assisi, Calwell
- Dominoes, Task 33, Kerry Wode, St. Thomas the Apostle, Kambah
- Fay's Nines, Task 54, Nichola Brandon, St. Benedict's, Narrabundah
- 13 Away, Task 59, Leanne Bateman & Margy Carracher (Years 1 & 2) & Paul Cecere, St. Matthew's, Page (Years 5 & 6)
- Coloured Squares, Task 112, Claire Campbell, St. Matthew's, Page (Year 1 & 2) and Belinda Rayment, St. Francis Assisi, Calwell
- Monkeys & Bananas, Task 212, Kerry, Wode, St. Thomas the Apostle, Kambah
- Tables for 25, Task 235, Nichola Brandon, St. Benedict's, Narrabundah
Thanks to all for your contributions.
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Neerabup Primary School
Brett Lewis, Principal, experienced one of our six day courses in another school some years ago. When Neerabup decided to build its curriculum around all children learning to work like a mathematician Brett asked us to help with professional development. The program has included 2 full day workshops for staff to open the year, continued with 5 days of a Mathematician in Residence program in June focussing on Threaded Activities from Calculating Changes and another 5 days in September focussing on Tasks and Maths300.
The program was for all teachers and all classes from 4-year-olds (Kindy is in the school system in Western Australia) to 13-year-olds in Year 7. As teachers began to take the curriculum shift on board, the administration resourced the school with Calculating Changes and Maths300 memberships, sets of Poly Plug for every class, Working Mathematically with Infants, Maths With Attitude kits and Menu Maths Packs.
One of the outcomes of the work has been the development of a flow chart to help the staff conceptualise the process of building a Working Mathematically curriculum. We know other schools are taking this path too, so the page is shared through the Link List below. It has been built by using the mathematician's strategy of working backwards from the objective. It could be especially useful in partnership with the more detailed document Working with Mathematics Centre, which is also listed below.
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- New Video on Cube Tube
Cube Tube helps you catch the vision of learning to work like a mathematician. The latest addition was filmed for the Association of Teachers of Mathematics, UK. It is titled Working Like a Mathematician and is built around Task 45, Eric The Sheep. Find your way to the ATM channel through the Cube Tube in the Link List below.
- Tasks of the Month
Two new cameos this month.
- Knight Swap is an easy to state and easy to start puzzle from chess that is not so easy to solve. The board is 3 x 3 and there are two black knights in the top corners and two white knights in the bottom corners. They have to change places.
- Painted Rods is a visual algebra problem that grows from handling Cuisenaire Rods. As with many of these types of tasks it includes aspects of number pattern, creating and solving equations, substitution, equivalent algebraic expressions and graphing and interpreting ordered pairs.
Click a photo to access its cameo, or access all current cameos through the Link List below.
Keep smiling,
Doug.
Link List
- Did you miss September News?
If so you missed information about:
- Professional development outcomes for 3 schools
- Menu Maths
- Models for Making Mathematicians
- Updates to cameos for Match Triangles, Reflections & Networks
- A new Cube Tube video: Yellow To Blue
- Iceberg Information about two Tasks of the Month
(Tasks 149, 150)
- ...and more...
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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.
- You can connect Tasks to their Maths300 companion lesson using Tasks & Maths300 (a PDF file).
Excel version provided by Pymble Ladies' College
- All these links, and more, appear in Working with Mathematics Centre (a PDF file).
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Previous News
August 2012
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