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News

September 2012

In this month's News you will find:

Red Square Professional Development Outcomes
Ranfurly Primary School
Evatt Primary School
Camberwell Primary School

Red Square Update to Algebra Through Geometry

Red Square Tasks of the Month
Task 149, A Stacking Problem
Task 150, Chess Queens

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Professional Development Outcomes

Ranfurly Primary School
For some time Di Clarke and the Ranfurly staff have been consistently shifting their teaching towards learning to work like a mathematician. In the last few weeks they have added to their development with one set of half day workshops for each group of year levels which was based around investigations and another set based around the school's recent membership of Calculating Changes.
Di has always tried to include local network schools in her organisation. The photo is of a recent after school session for around 40 primary and secondary teachers. The topic was Menu Maths & Other Models for Making Mathematicians. The atmosphere was very much like going out to a restaurant with a group of friends - exactly the 'feel' intended. If you like the sound of the workshop, look for it on the program of the Mathematical Association of Victoria annual December conference and also on the program of the 2013 Easter conference of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics, UK.
No promises though that at those sessions we can match Di's great catering.
Evatt Primary School
Sarah Collis is one of around 30 teachers participating in a six day program entitled Working Like A Mathematician organised by the Catholic Education Office Canberra Goulburn. They are a remarkably creative bunch and you will be hearing more about their work. But for now the PowerPoint produced by Sarah's Year 5 students is worth a look.
Miss Collis called this an 'aha' moment and couldn't stop smiling and we felt successful.
They were so excited by their first whole class investigation, and other staff were so interested in what they had been doing, that Sarah invited them to create the PowerPoint to explain. In fact they were publishing their work just like a mathematician would. The PowerPoint has been included as a From The Classroom section in the cameo for Task 178, Match Triangles. The slideshow is also accessible from the Recording & Publishing section of our site. See Link List below.

Camberwell Primary School
Level 4 students at Camberwell Primary School were very busy exploring and creating Patterns Around Us during the recent National Numeracy Week. Look at this amazing quilt-like display!
But where did they start? How long did it take? Find out more in the cameo of Task 96, Networks.
Some students also explored rotation and reflection patterns with Poly Plugs. You will find some of that work in the cameo of Task 95, Reflections. And all the students explored the movements patterns involved in Task 132, Red To Blue. The video made by four girls to explain this problem has earned it a place in Cube Tube for its excellent, succinct and unique explanation.
See Link List below.

Update to Algebra Through Geometry

Geoff Giles was an inspirational, student-centred mathematics educator from Scotland. His work through the 1970s, 80s and 90s is reflected in several of our tasks and in none more uniquely than Algebra Through Geometry.
Recently while exploring the web, we found links to extensive developments of this task, including an on-line copy of Geoff's original student workbook. It makes a wonderful unit of work if you have the Tak Tiles on which the task is built. If you don't have them, contact our Distribution Manager.
We have added the links to the cameo for this task. See Link List below.

Tasks of the Month
Two new cameos this month.
- A Stacking Problem is easy to state and easy to start, but not so easy to solve. Many students will come back to it over time. Some will stick at it until they solve it. There is a movement pattern to discover to achieve the transfer of the blocks according to the rules, and an Investigation Guide is included to help discover it. The guide may be used by student pairs, or in the whole class investigation situation.
- Chess Queens involves using multiple queens on a chess board to attempt to guard every square. Easy enough to do with 8 queens, but tougher with 5 queens, which is the main challenge on the card. Solving this is the tip of the iceberg. It isn't possible to guard all the squares using 4 squares, so, what is the maximum number that can be guarded? And if you can change the number of queens, what about changing the size of the board?
A Stacking Problem Chess Queens
Click a photo to access its cameo, or access all current cameos through the Link List below.

Keep smiling,
Doug.

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Did you miss August News?
If so you missed information about:
1. Maths With Attitude: 2nd Edition
2. Gold! It's Gold for Potatoes
3. Working Mathematically with Infants
4. From The Classroom x 3
5. Iceberg Information about two Tasks of the Month
  (Tasks 148, 180)
6. ...and more...

Did You Know?

You can find tasks coded by Year Level and Curriculum Strand in the Task Centre Catalogue (PDF file).
The Activities link of Calculating Changes offers Content Finder & Year Level Finder tools.
Our Site Map acts as a Table of Contents to help you find what you need in Mathematics Centre.
You can search for lessons by Year Level, Curriculum Strand, Lesson Features & Keyword at Maths300.
You can connect Tasks to their Maths300 companion lesson using Tasks & Maths300 (a PDF file).
Excel version provided by Pymble Ladies' College
All these links, and more, appear in Working with Mathematics Centre (a PDF file).

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Continue exploring our history back to July 1992 through the Sense of History link.

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News

September 2012

Link List

Did You Know?