Task Centre News

December 2006/January 2007

• Student Training Day
  Korumburra Cluster in Victoria has been working hard, funded by and ASISTM grant, to shift schools across the district towards students learning to work like a mathematician. One of the innovations they tried recently was training selected secondary students across the cluster to be able to present Maths300 lessons as peer to peer teachers. Mike Tattersall, Wonthaggi Secondary College, reports on this interesting experiment in the link Do Tasks Work? on the left.

• Tasks of the Month
  Truth Tiles found its way into the task centre collection through a classroom at Mt. Leibig in Northern Territory during the development of the original Task Centre Kit for Indigenous Students in 1993. (How's that for a memory Bruce?). And it was a young female mathematician who found the first solution. The task seems so simple. Nine digits - nine spaces in three equations. You are only required to place the numbers so that all equations are true at the same time. But to find all the solutions, and to be sure that you have, is a more sophisticated investigation.
  Cube Nets is a much stronger investigation than the usual activity of cutting out a pre-determined net, adding tabs and folding and sticking to make a cube. There are many nets of a cube, and the task encourages students to search for and record all they can. Again, how do you know when you have found them all.
  Truth Tiles Cube Nets

  Read about these Tasks of the Month in Task Cameos in the Iceberg Information link on the left, or click on a photo to go straight to printable information about the task. Add the printed files to your Cameo Collection. There is a cover page for your collection in the Iceberg Information link.

• Freight Extra
  Over the last few years postage charges have been edging upwards. Freight has always been included in our advertised prices, but that practice now has to change. We can't go on absorbing the post office changes. From now, we are introducing a policy of adding standard postal charges to the cost of an order. This will happen in two phases.
  • Phase 1 (from December 1 2006): prices of all support resources available from Black Douglas have been reviewed and are now sold on a 'plus freight' basis.
  • Phase 2 (from July 1 2007): prices of all tasks and task kits will be reviewed and sold on a 'plus freight' basis.
  Phase 1 changes have been made to all prices on, or linked to, this site. Changes are minimal, but important. Please use the new Price List (from the screen or printed) to make your purchases between January and June 2007. New lists will be available from July 1 2007.

• Tasks at MAVCON
  The Mathematical Association of Victoria (MAV) is to be congratulated on another fabulous annual conference for around 2000 teachers from across Australia, and indeed the world. Some of those lucky teachers were able to attend a session titled Digging Into Hands-on Tasks which used the tasks listed in the Task Cameos to highlight the principles and practice of working with our extensive range of investigations.

  Here are some photos of the folks at work.

• Did you miss the November News?
  If so you missed information about:
  1. Indigenous students investigating in the ITAS program in Tassie.
  2. More on tasks being used at Ernabella Anangu School.
  3. Maths on the Move programs to support teachers of Indigenous students.
  4. Iceberg Information about two Tasks of the Month.
  5. An update of the Poly Plug and tasks link.
  6. ... and more.

Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.
Keep smiling,
Doug.