News

1. Following a second professional development visit to Coolgardie CAPS school, Susie Hall sent this brief message:

   Hey Doug,
   Tried out some of the challenge games with my guys, they loved them, especially Eric The Sheep, the game I played in the PD. They were captivated with it, constantly tried getting the right answers, kept them busy for a fair time...

   Part of the PD focus was the school's WMI kit, in which Eric is listed as an investigation for Semester 2 in Year 1. Susie already runs a learning centre approach with her class of Year K/1 Aboriginal children, so it seems Eric fitted in on all counts. WMI includes 45 Threaded Activities and 48 Investigations across Years K-2. Find out more in the Link List below.
2. A new Maths on the Move course has been added to our activities for this year. This time for the Catholic Education Office Canberra/Goulburn. They have also raised the possibility of running a six day program for them in 2011 and the possibility of training their officers to present that program in the future.

   Around about now you are going to be asked to prepare your own Professional Learning budget for 2011. You might like to take a cruise through our Professional Development choices. See Link List below.

We have also produced a brand new one page order form. You can use your school purchase order or our order form. Wherever you are in this big, wide mathematics education world Ina Koetsier, our Distribution Manager, is ready, willing and able to look after you. See Link List below or Navigation Ribbon above.

You're not a Maths300 member?

Don't worry there is help in the Task Cameo for Task 1, Final Eight (see Link List below). However, you won't be able to access the complete lesson plan or the magnificent software that allows you to play thousands of finals programs in seconds.

MacMaths has been writing relevant, challenging, and slightly rebellious blogs for some years. They are short, pithy and worth a read. They may be based in the British scene, but the issues addressed are usually common across countries. The UK has travelled some awful mathematics education paths in recent decades and those who are not aware of that history are in danger of repeating it - especially the potentially horrifying consequences of a national curriculum and national name and shame.

But who is MacMaths?

In the latest issue of Mathematics Teaching, Association of Teachers of Mathematics, Issue 219, the MacMaths blog from August 2007, titled Was there ever any point to the three-part lesson?, has been published in print. It reveals that MacMath is ... our old friend, former teacher in tough London schools and former HMI, John Hibbs. John is a person organisations such as AAMT and MAV could well consider as a keynote speaker for future conferences.

Way prior to the blogs, John was providing material for our Working Mathematically page through his Notes from an Inspector's Notebook (see Link List) which provide examples of working like a mathematician.

Perhaps this quote from Was there ever any point to the three-part lesson? might encourage you to find the MacMath link below:

Somehow I wish that teachers would have the confidence to take back the responsibility, that can only be theirs, of deciding how best to teach their pupils and stop thinking that there is some magic form that would guarantee successful lessons; that there is a right and proper way to do things with their pupils that someone else knows about. Please bring back variety, flexibility, novelty, and a sense of lessons that are fit for purpose?

• Mathematics Teachers mark too much
• Are we obsessed with assessing?
• Could all that money be better spent?
• POLITICIANS - leave those schools alone
• Questioning
• ...and many more