Presentation Summaries Biography of Keynote Speaker Judy Anderson - PDF document

Presentation Summaries Biography of Keynote Speaker Judy Anderson University of Sydney Judy Anderson began her career as a secondary mathematics teacher and after completing a PhD, taught in the tertiary sector. Prior to her role at the University of Sydney, Judy worked at BOSTES NSW as a Senior Curriculum Officer, Mathematics K-12, responsible for the development of the K-10 mathematics syllabuses. She has held positions of President of MANSW and AAMT and is currently on the Executive Committee of ACSA. She has conducted research into middle year’s students’ motivation and engagement and teachers’ knowle dge and understanding of problem solving approaches to the teaching and learning of mathematics. Judy has close connections with schools through her work in developing students’ engagement with the curriculum regularly providing professional development for primary and secondary teachers. As an avid advocate for STEM education and the promotion of opportunities for girls in STEM fields, she is leading the STEM Teacher Enrichment Academy at the University. Judy Anderson’s keynote is sponsored by:

Presentation Summaries Opening Plenary Wednesday 30th September, 2015 9:00am - 9:20am Mrs Becky Lovelock (Convenor) Brigidine College St Ives Combined Semillon Rooms Opening and Welcome to Country Housekeeping issues:  Structure of the day  Your name tag is your ticket – wear it throughout the day, and each day of attendance  Where to find the other breakout rooms  Sponsors – generous companies  Where to find the sponsors and exhibitors  New scheme teachers sign-on  Thank you to presenters; your gift; feedback; phone in room for technology assistance  Evaluation is via Survey Monkey. The URL is beneath each presentation  End of day – President’s reception drinks Introduction of Keynote speaker. KEYNOTE Wednesday 30th September, 2015 9:20am - 10:30am What I have learnt about teaching mathematics from my students (and what I did to address their concerns). Associate Professor Judy Anderson University of Sydney Combined Semillon Rooms This presentation will examine some of the feedback I have had from students about teaching and learning mathematics. This feedback was given to me as a secondary mathematics teacher, and as a researcher in primary and secondary mathematics classrooms. To address some of the students’ concerns, I had to make changes to my practice since the textbook approach did not suit everyone. Additionally, sitting the students in small groups did not always work either. This forced me to consider new ways of teaching in mixed ability settings and new ways of using the textbook as a teaching tool. While teachers told me they were implementing problem solving in their classrooms, the students I interviewed gave me a different impression of what was going on. As a class group, students are generally quite astute at judging the quality of teaching and learning – or at least they can soon tell you whether they are learning any mathematics. We can all learn by asking them for feedback but we must then act on the advice. Feedback is at https://surveymonkey.com/r/MANSWSession001 Gold Sponsors

Presentation Summaries SESSION 1 Wednesday 30th September, 2015 11:00am - Noon To be continued… Garry Webb Educational Consultant 7-12 Semillon 1 Continued fractions are a little-known way of representing all real numbers. In many ways they are better than decimals for representing irrational numbers. We will evaluate terminating and repeating continued fractions, see how to find a continued fraction for any irrational number, and find 'good' rational approximations to pi and other well-known irrational numbers. Feedback is at https://surveymonkey.com/r/MANSWSession011 Moving Students from Band 5 to Band 6 Susan Turnbull and Gary Davies Hunters Hill High School, The Kings School 11-12 Semillon 2 The performance descriptions for Band 6 in the HSC Maths exams refer to students’ extensive knowledge and skills, using sophisticated reasoning and integrating topic ideas and skills to solve difficult problems. How do we prepare students to do this? This presentation considers the type of questions we need to be exposing students to in the classroom in order for them to be able to make the jump from Band 5 to Band 6, and prepare them to be sophisticated mathematicians. General Mathematics 2, Mathematics, Mathematics Extension 1 and Extension 2 will all be covered. Resources to enable teachers to extend students in this way will be provided. Feedback is at https://surveymonkey.com/r/MANSWSession012 Touching the mathematics and making the big connections – Data collection, graphing and algebraic modelling with investigative activity and interactive tools. (iPad App). Brian Lannen Victory Lutheran College Vic. 7-10 Semillon 3 The notion of mathematical functions is at the heart of much of the Australian Curriculum secondary Mathematics courses, but the foundation for learning this is really set in the Middle Years. Do you regularly draw a “function machine” on your whiteboard? I do and I also have my students actually work with such machines to help them make the important connections between algebraic functions, data and graphs. Linear graphs and functions will be a focus for this workshop, which draws upon interactive and interconnected features of TI-Nspire App for iPad. Feedback is at https://surveymonkey.com/r/MANSWSession013 Developmental Mathematics in 2015 Robert Yen Cengage Learning 7-10 Chardonnay How do we reach students who don’t like maths and who achieve little success in the subject? How can we do things differently in 2015? This workshop will be an opportunity to discuss practical classroom ideas and learn ten clear strategies for improving student engagement and confidence. Discover how important it is to change the learning environment as well as to change the learning tasks. There will also be a preview of Developmental Mathematics 5th edition. This successful junior maths series that was first published in 1974 has been completely updated for the NSW syllabus and Australian curriculum. [Commercial] Feedback is at https://surveymonkey.com/r/MANSWSession014

Presentation Summaries SESSION 1 (cont) Wednesday 30th September, 2015 11:00pm - Noon Pythagorean triples Shane Scott Trinity Grammar School 7-12 Shiraz How many Pythagorean Triples are there? You may have seen a formula to generate them, Does it generate all triples or are there more? In this workshop we will explore the derivation of the formula for generating Pythagorean Triples, investigate the relationship with the unit circle and even find a relationship between Fibonacci numbers and Pythagorean triples. Feedback is at https://surveymonkey.com/r/MANSWSession015 Using Educreations to support a "good year" of mathematical experiences in the classroom Annie Agnew McCarthy Catholic College Sydney K-6 Verdelho Participants will learn how to use Educreations to create resources to support students in the ongoing understanding of mathematical concepts. Educreations can also be used for students to demonstrate understanding - or to show where issues/problems/mistakes are occurring, supporting feedback and development of skills. Feedback is at https://surveymonkey.com/r/MANSWSession016 Getting through Gen Maths 2 Judy Binns Mulwaree High School 11-12 Cellar Room 1 Do you have trouble fitting everything in with the new course? Do you struggle to teach "in the spirit of the syllabus"? This session will outline one school's attempt to present the General Maths 2 course in a way that does justice to the Focus Studies, is hopefully more interesting to the students and still covers everything in the time available. Hopefully there will be time for questions and discussion - bring your experiences with you! Feedback is at https://surveymonkey.com/r/MANSWSession017 2015 one year into the new syllabus, what have we learnt? Katherin Cartwright NSW Department of Education K-6 Cellar Room 2 This session will be presented by Katherin Cartwright, Maths Advisor from NSW DoE. This workshop will look at what effects the new mathematics syllabus has had on the way we teach, what we focus on and how we make meaningful connections for our students. This session will involve hands-on tasks that highlight the working mathematically areas of communicating, problem solving and reasoning and how making connections across concepts is changing the way we plan and sequence mathematics in the primary classroom. Feedback is at https://surveymonkey.com/r/MANSWSession018