MathsCraft Immersive PD Workshop

David Wood

  •  20 Nov 2019 - 24 Nov 2019
     8:00 am - 5:00 pm

Organisers:
Anthony Harradine (Potts-Baker Institute, Prince Alfred College, ACEMS)
Anita Ponsaing (ACEMS, University of Melbourne)
Nigel Bean (ACEMS, University of Adelaide)

Program Description:
This professional development event will give you more information about the MathsCraft program, and equip you to become a leader of MathsCraft sessions in your area.

What is MathsCraft?
In their work, research mathematicians do not generally:

  • Sit competitions
  • Have daily lessons or lectures
  • Study for tests and exams

So what do they do? Among other things, they use previously learned facts and know-how to build solutions to problems, problems that they initially have no idea how to solve.

In MathsCraft sessions, teachers and students get to do just this, in a supportive, collaborative, conversation rich environment. The MathsCraft session leader poses problems, provokes participants and builds an environment in the room that will prompt ideas. The sessions are designed to give students and teachers an authentic experience of doing mathematical research, whatever their current level.

MathsCraft sessions have been running since 2012, led by Anthony Harradine, Director of the Potts–Baker Institute at Prince Alfred College, Adelaide. Since 2015, in collaboration with ACEMS, sessions have been held in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, at schools and at universities.

More about MathsCraft

Who should attend this workshop?
This workshop is aimed at teachers of mathematics who:

  • Like mathematics;
  • Are generally inquisitive;
  • Are not afraid of problems that they cannot solve;
  • Believe that students can have original ideas about problems, if the problems are appropriate;
  • Are interested in learning how to help students develop their ideas into reasoned responses to the problem;
  • Wants to learn more than they already know.

What you will get out of it / your commitment
This workshop will give you the knowledge and resources needed to run MathsCraft problem sessions, whether for your own class, students in your school, or as an event for schools in your local area. The workshop will also cover how the approaches used in MathsCraft sessions can be applied more generally to the everyday classroom — it will include sessions that illustrate how topics like Pythagoras Theorem can be transformed into a research-like experience for students.

This workshop is offered for free, on the understanding that you will run 4 MathsCraft activities in your own classroom or school in 2020 (one per term), and share with us a picture of the resulting whiteboards along with a brief description of what happened in the session. These may be published on our new website (currently under development).

In addition we hope that you, with support from your school, will choose to conduct MathsCraft sessions for schools in your area. We will provide ongoing support for the running of these sessions.

Official Professional Development certification will be provided by the University of Adelaide.

More information: https://acems.org.au/events/mathscraft-immersive-pd-workshop-2019
Any enquiries, please contact Anita Ponsaing <anita.ponsaing@unimelb.edu.au>

Program Structure:
Below is the Program Structure. Please click to enlarge.

Registration:

  • Deadline: 20 September 2019
  • Registration is by invitation only

Participant List
Suzanne Garvey (Brigidine College Indooroopilly)
Marta Matthews (Prince Alfred College)
Andy Lockey (Yea High School, Victoria)
Sean Kelleher (Noble Park English Language School)
Debbie Lilly (Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School)
Danny Fowles (Wedderburn College)
Catherine Christie
Margaret Inder (Kamo High School)
Callum Johnson (Mosman High School)
Ralis Vane-Tempest (St Joseph’s College)
Megan Lock (Nazareth Catholic Community)
Elizabeth Foley (Chevallum State School)
Narelle Morris (St James Lutheran College)
Emma Milne
Jacob Giudice (Girton Grammar School)
Annie Oliver (Christian College Geelong)
Samantha Dodras (Churchlands Senior High School)
Emily Ryan (Braemar College (Macedon Ranges))
Natalie Lawler (Queensland Academy for Science Mathematics and Technology)
Rhonda Mossel (St Paul’s College, Kempsey)
Mark McKinnon (St John the Evangelist Catholic High School)
Michael Payne (La Trobe University)
Toen Castle (La Trobe University)
Jason Whyte (University of Melbourne)
Trithang Tran (University of Melbourne)
Anthony Mays (University of Melbourne)
Peter Taylor (University of Melbourne)
Rheanna Mainzer (University of Melbourne)
Anita Ponsaing (University of Melbourne)
Anthony Harradine (University of Melbourne)
Nigel Bean (University of Adelaide)
Sam Povall (University of Melbourne)
Ana Dow (Trinity College, Foundation Studies, the University of Melbourne)
Rosanna Verde (ACEMS – The University of Melbourne)

 


ASSOCIATED EVENTS

MATRIX Wine and Cheese Afternoon 23 November 2019
MATRIX provides a pre-dinner wine and cheese afternoon. Produce is locally-sourced to showcase delicacies from the region.