While we are not able to meet face to face for our usual Saturday morning get-together, AMA are bringing you a bigger and better choice of sessions online. There are options for teachers of years 0 to 8, years 7 to 10 and years 11 to 13.
Sessions will start on the hour from 9:00 am. The last session will finish by 1pm. The sessions will be recorded and technology prevailing they will be posted on the AMA YouTube channel after the event.
The link to join your chosen sessions will be sent to the email you registered with on Friday June 12. If you do not see it in your inbox please check your junk mail folder.
We hope that you will be able to join us on Saturday morning of June 13th for our first ever virtual PLD event.
9:00am Keynotes
NCEA Changes, Where are we at? Lauren Burr & Rob Mill, Ministry of Education
Tune in for an update on the NCEA change package and what it means for teachers of mathematics and statistics.
Have a browse of the presentation slides before the session here
Rob is the manager of the secondary team at the Ministry of Education and Lauren is a senior adviser for Ministry of Education, Wellington
Balancing conceptual understanding and procedural fluency. Vince Wright
The “mathematics wars” began in the 1960s and signalled a clash of philosophies. Should teaching of concepts come first, or should students be taught procedures first, in the belief that understanding would come later? The debate was never resolved but more recent research points to mutual ‘bootstrapping’ between conceptual understanding and procedural fluency. In the keynote I address how a balance of concept and procedure might influence our teaching of mathematics and statistics. Examples will come from across Years 1-10 so the ideas are relevant to teachers of students in that range.
Vince has been a mathematics educator for 30 years with experience across primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. He holds a PhD in mathematics education and spent six years in Melbourne as an Associate Professor. He currently balances his efforts between content development for nzmaths, educational television, and consultancy for NZCER, The Ministry of Education, and The Catholic Education Office Melbourne. Vince also tutors mathematics at NCEA levels 1-3 for students in Taupō, his wonderful place of residence.
10:00am Session 1
1A. NCEA: 3D printing Desmos designs – Creative assignments for calculus. Katy Thorne.
Open-ended tasks for 3.1 Conic Sections and 2.2 Graphs with a possible 3D printed outcome at the end. Creative chances to gather authentic evidence for assessment online. Lots of opportunities for whanaungatanga and fun to mark! (3D printing bit not essential to the tasks).
Links for the session
- The powerpoint link https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sgiBuCd6r0Q_FHSKbl6_HvWDPS8oaQWHn2inw6T1otM/edit?usp=sharing
- Student work website link https://sites.google.com/aquinas.school.nz/conicsectionsdesigns/home
- For the workshop student.desmos.com use the code H7NVFT
- The resources link https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yJ8mu29ocoAxcwk0QqudL5SLVkqmRaHw
Katy Thorne is the Leader of Learning for Maths at Aquinas College in Tauranga, she has previous experience teaching maths in a diverse range of schools in NZ and the UK, including the open plan learning environment at Papamoa College.
1B. Years 7-10: PrimeClimb & Python: Boardgame, Maths & Coding. Priscilla Allan
PrimeClimb is a board game which uses colour to show prime factorisation in a visual way. This workshop will explore the presentation of “prime climb type” numbers using trinket and python. You will learn how to remix the code to create your own version. This task has been well received by year 6, 7 and 8 students. It is low entry (thinking about the numbers and colors) and high exit (learning to program in python, a widely used language).
Priscilla recently moved to the primary sector after 15 years as a seconday school math teacher. Lover of PrimeClimb, Desmos, Geogebra, Scratch, Python & Trinket. I store ideas on my Google Sites. https://sites.google.com/view/2020-math/lockdown/python has links to the code for you to remix.
1C. Years 0-8: Using a free data analysis tool – CODAP. Pip Arnold.
In this workshop participants will be encouraged to undertake statistical investigations using CODAP. In preparation for the session participants should watch the following short YouTube presentations: https://youtu.be/FrNqugRRHy4 and https://youtu.be/8LhcFWVsq5k
It would be ideal if you were to participate in the webinar on a laptop or similar where you can split your screen so you can be using CODAP and also viewing the webinar.
Pip has an interest in statistics education and wants to support as many teachers as possible to become familiar and comfortable with using online tools for statistical analysis. CODAP is a freely available tool with similar features to Tinkerplots and Fathom. She has found it is easy for students to use as young as 8 or 9. Pip is a MOE accredited facilitator.
11:00am Session 2
2A. NCEA: Online NCEA External assessment trials. Derek Smith
2019 saw an online trial with Tables, Equations and Graphs, 2020 sees online trials for Level 2 Calculus and Level 3 Probability Distributions. This session will take you through the progress with these to date and an opportunity to share the rationale and ‘play’ with the web-tools being used.
Derek is currently on contract to the University of Otago, as a mathematics and statistics facilitator and is also the NZAMT National Kaiārahi for the Network of Expertise. This mahi is about building strong relationships with each individual, matching their needs and readiness for challenges to engage in new learning, based on research evidence and the teaching as inquiry spiral, merging theory with practice to enhance teacher and students’ learning outcomes. He has taught mathematics and statistics at secondary schools in the Wellington and Wairarapa regions for 33 years holding HOD positions and a senior lecturer at VUWCE, in Mathematics Education.
2B. Years 7-10: Moving Forward, how can we harness our lockdown learning? Robyn Headifen.
After being thrown out of our comfort zones and hurled into the world of online learning, what are the opportunities for us to incorporate some of the digital tools and strategies we used over lockdown in our everyday practice to help students make sense of mathematics concept now that we can work in a planned and considered way. Robyn will share some of her learning and the learning of others to build engagement and sense making in the mathematics classroom.
Robyn is passionate about helping students and teachers find the joy in learning mathematics. She is the Auckland kaiārahi for the Networks of Expertise (Mathematics & Statistics) and a MOE accredited facilitator. Robyn also works across locally focussed PLD, and the Teacher Education Refresh programme.
2C. Years 0-8: Linking Digital Technologies to mathematics. Tracey Pacheco.
This session will present links between, in particular the computational thinking strand of Digital Technologies within the technology curriculum area and the maths curriculum. We will look at how we can engage students with these strands and what it looks like in the everyday classroom, so we can integrate seamlessly.
Tracey is a MOE Accredited facilitator in Digital Technologies and Local Curriculum. She is also the founder of the education consultancy Blend Learning NZ, with a vision for every teacher to feel confident delivering quality, innovative learning. Tracey has a wealth of knowledge and a passion for her profession from 20 years of teaching. She focusses on engaging, enhancing and deepening learning through critical and creative thinking. She can assist the development of a robust local curriculum and growing teachers confidence to plan and scaffold students with the use of digital technology across the NZ curriculum. She supports schools through strategic planning, hands-on workshops and in-class modelling, creating successful pedagogical change.
12:00pm Session 3
3A. NCEA: Scholarship Calculus. Jamie Craik.
An opportunity to share ideas for supporting scholarship candidates, especially when schools have not provided extra timetabled time or resources.
A former scientist and industrial chemist with a passion for mathematics teaching, Jamie spent 15 years teaching Further Maths and Science in Jersey before making the move to Aotearoa New Zealand four years ago. He is actively involved in running the competitions programme at Rangitoto College and he is working on building up support for colleagues who would like to become teachers/coaches of scholarship candidates. Jamie is a keen classic yacht sailor and is a crew volunteer on the Spirit of New Zealand.
3B. Years 7-10: Cross-curricular learning in Mathematics. Zac Rutledge.
Over the last 3 years our school has transitioned from a traditional model to a cross-curricular model in the junior school. We also have three 90 minute lessons a day for the whole school. The transition has been very challenging, and we have done lots of learning along the way. It was a particularly difficult journey in the maths department and one we are still on. When we started, the only examples we saw were new schools with time to prepare and hand picked staff and I’m interested in sharing what that journey has been like for us as an existing school so that people, and in particular maths teachers and departments can learn from our success and failures.
I’m hoping to bring people together with their ideas and questions for discussion. With attitudes from “love it” to “hate it” in our school I’ve been in both camps at times, and in between for much of the way, so I’m not presenting it as a bed of roses but I am overall sure that this has been a positive move for our students and their mathematics learning.
Zac has been a Mathematics teacher for 10 years and is currently the assistant HOD at Thames High School.
3C. Years 0-8: Maths Games and Number Sense Routines. Marie Hirst.
Some fresh ideas to help develop fluency and reasoning in your class or learning at home. We shall explore some engaging activities that require minimal equipment and can be adapted across a range of year levels 0-8.
Marie is the Kaiārahi for the Auckland Mathematics Association Networks of Expertise providing support for teachers of Y0-8. Alongside this role Marie is an accredited education consultant and director of ‘Special Addition’ with over 20 years experience facilitating quality mathematics professional learning and development with schools. Prior to this she worked in similar roles for Team Solutions and Cognition Education. She has presented nationally at NZAMT and PMA as well as internationally at MERGA and MAV, and has written mathematics resource material for teachers.
Featured Image: Justin Buisson Unsplash
