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Maths With Attitude

Maths With Attitude is designed to help teachers of Years 3-10 create:
happy, healthy, cheerful, productive, inspiring classrooms
in which students learn to work like a mathematician.

It is a detailed model of one way to build a core curriculum around learning to work like a mathematician. The model supports the objectives of any official curriculum document which values questioning, reasoning, justifying and communicating.

The model is built around 16 units - 4 at each of Years 3/4, 5/6, 7/8 & 9/10.

Teachers are supported by MWA eManuals and Task Cameos to build the curriculum around 20 hands-on tasks and a collection of whole class investigations per unit. This curriculum shift can be tackled one unit at a time.

  MWA Expanded

  Features of eManuals

  More Details

  Which Tasks & Lessons?

  Teacher Evaluations

  Prices & Ordering

     ...     

 

  • Maths300 membership enriches this curriculum by providing lesson plans and software for many investigations.

  • Used in sequence with Working Mathematically with Infants, MWA offers a real alternative to text-based mathematics learning through all compulsory school years.

 

Working Mathematically with Infants
All children at all levels can learn to work like a mathematician. Working Mathematically with Infants supports teachers of Years K-2 to begin this process. WMI integrates with MWA.

Creating a Working Mathematically Curriculum
This one page PDF file will help you conceptualise a process for creating a core curriculum in which students at all levels are learning to work like a mathematician in best practice classrooms.

  Enhancing Maths With Attitude

Green Line

MWA Expanded

Learning to work like a mathematician involves:
  • modelling what it means to work like a mathematician
  • inviting students to apply the process independently
  • practising the skills of a mathematician in context
Maths With Attitude draws from each major strand of mathematics to support teachers in juggling the time spent on modelling, invitation and practice.

Questioning, reasoning, justifying and communicating are the core of Maths With Attitude because these processes are the core of a mathematician's work. Content is chosen to illustrate, develop, improve and assess student ability to work like a mathematician.

Each Maths With Attitude unit is constructed around:

  • 20 tasks from Mathematics Task Centre.
  • an MWA eManual which includes week by week, lesson by lesson scope and sequence planning.
The number of weeks planned in each manual varies, but together the four units at a level provide 25 weeks of Core Curriculum across all strands and all year levels from Year 3 to Year 10.

Maths300 membership enriches Maths With Attitude and the eManuals support you to draw together and integrate:

  • Task Cameos
  • Maths300 lesson plans
  • Maths300 software
...all of which are accessed directly from the web.
  • Tasks offer students an invitation to work like a mathematicians independently.
  • Each task also offer teachers the stimulus for a whole class investigation.
  • Task Cameos are answers, discussion further investigation and whole class lesson ideas for tasks.
  • Maths300 lessons and software support modelling the Working Mathematically process through whole class investigations.
  • Picture Puzzles, Menu Maths Packs and other resources add further variety to the curriculum.

Features of eManuals

  • Flexible, coherent and sequenced.
  • Detailed support for a Working Mathematically core curriculum.
  • Clear links to year level and curriculum strand.
  • Week by week planning to integrate tasks and lessons into a Core Curriculum. Each eManual provides planning for two years.
  • Best practice teaching craft throughout.
  • All manuals are laid out the same way. Become familiar with one and you will automatically be familiar with others.
  • Trial schools have shown that a Working Mathematically curriculum can lead to substantial success for students.
  • Self-directed professional development is supported by the manual, Maths300 lesson plans and Maths300 ETuTE.
  • Value adds to the tasks you have or make and to your Maths300 membership.

Your Questions Answered

How do I use the Planners?
Any way you like ... but they are sequenced week to week and year to year. Maximum value will come from mapping planner weeks into your year planner as a core curriculum and building from there. Then publish the whole as your school course document and link to your systemic documents as appropriate.

Do I have to belong to Maths300 before I purchase eManuals?
No. You can build a strong Working Mathematically curriculum using the tasks, eManual information and Task Cameos. But the Planners do reference Maths300 membership so you will build a much stronger curriculum if you also purchase Maths300 membership.

How do I purchase Maths300 membership?
The Maths300 web site gives you the details. Follow our Maths300 link above.

8 eManuals for Years 3 - 6
8 eManuals for Years 7 - 10
... we have programmed a range of Tasks/Maths300 lessons across Years 7-10. The level of enthusiasm amongst staff and students is encouraging and we are appreciative of all of the work you have put into the Maths With Attitude kits - they are fantastic!! Thanks once again for all of your hard work - it is making maths relevant and meaningful to lots of students!!
...Michael Swanborough, Flinders Christian College
Another teacher remarked:
This is brilliant. I have been trying to use a combination of tasks and whole class investigations, but I have always felt it was a bit piecemeal. Now I can organise a much better problem solving curriculum.

More Details

  • MWA eManuals are teachers' manuals.
  • We publish them for your school and deliver them to you by email.
  • You use them from your server and/or print them for staff use.
  • Each eManual is built around Task Cameos for 20 tasks and teaching notes for a number of whole class investigations.
  • Click a sample task photo below to reveal its Task Cameo.
  • Click an eManual cover below to reveal its tasks, lessons and other details.
  • Planning pages of each manual reveal a core curriculum in learning to work like a mathematician through a scope and sequence built around Task Cameos and Maths300.
  • Best practice teaching craft is encouraged throughout.
  • Each unit provides extensive support for self-directed professional development.
Schools can extend the professional learning with the assistance of their system consultant or an external leader.

 
Sample Tasks
Number & Computation Years 5 & 6
Click a task to view its Task Cameo

 
MWA offers a core curriculum around which you scaffold your overall year's work. Planning begins by showing the proportion of the year assigned to each curriculum strand. Planners then state which tasks and lessons to use in each week and suggest ways of using them. Like the slices of a pie the pieces may be shuffled to create your own balance within the whole. For example, the eight weeks in Number & Computation shown here doesn't imply eight continuous weeks of number. 5 & 6 Number Pie
Planning Pie Charts
Years 5 & 6

5 & 6 Pattern Pie

Which Tasks & Maths300 Lessons?

  • Click the image of any manual below to reveal which task and which Maths300 lessons have been integrated into the unit.
  • Substitute for any of the tasks or lessons shown, or add additional ones, using the information on the page Enhancing Maths With Attitude.

Primary eManuals

Secondary eManuals

Prices & Ordering

eManuals ... $22 each
  • GST included.
  • eManuals are published for your school and delivered by email.
  • You use them from your server and/or print them for staff.
  • Maths300 membership is purchased separately.
  • Details about Maths300 Membership.
Questions? Please contact us.
To order, use your school purchase order, or our Order Form.

Teacher Evaluations

  • Changing Places, Tasmania
    (Years 3 & 4)
    Comments from teachers in 18 schools which trialed Number & Computation (1st Edition).

  • Wade High School, Griffith, NSW (Years 7 & 8)
    This school used the Space & Logic kit as a four week unit to begin Year 7. Magic was the description offered by their HoD. Take a look at the photos of student displays and ponder the additional benefits of students being able to 'show their stuff' like this at the beginning of their high school career.

  • Lilydale High School, Lilydale, Victoria (Years 7 - 10)
    One of the school's coaches created a simple, visual way to document the core sequence of investigations for a year from the planners in each eManual. Read this short news item.

  • Lilydale High School, Lilydale, Victoria (Years 7)
    Tom Moore, HoD Lilydale, invites you to visit the web site created by his class as they explored the Year 7/8 Pattern & Algebra kit together.

The photo shows a Maths With Attitude professional development day at Investigator College, South Australia. Teachers are mapping the use of their MWA kits into curriculum plans across their Goolwa and Victor Harbour campuses.
Planning With MWA

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