Maths and Physics at CSHS

Introduction to Summer School Feedback

Between January 6 and 16 this year I attended the Maths Summer School. A Federal Government Initiative aimed at improving numeracy/ mathematical ability of students Australia wide.

This particular Summer School was hosted by The University of New England in Armidale, NSW (about an hours flight northwest of Sydney in one of those little planes called Dash-8’s). All up their was roughly 200 Mathematics Teachers from all over Australia employed in both the private and public sector and from Primary and Secondary Schools.

The aim of this Summer School was to improve the quality of Mathematics Education throughout Australia by looking at and investigating many different aspects of education, both in general and those more specific to Maths.

The daily routine for the 10 days didn’t vary much. It consisted of Keynote Speakers, Workshops (10-15 teachers plus a facilitator) and Tutorials (4-5 teachers only).

The role of the Keynote Speakers was to provide a background about an aspect of education ( How the brain works, International Standards etc.). After each of these there were timetabled Workshops (they even took the role) where an assigned facilitator would help to start group conversations about the preceding Keynote. The tutorial groups would then meet every 2-3 workshops to further discuss and explore ideas we found interesting.

Because of the broad range of material covered in these 10 days I thought the best way to share my understandings and knowledge of the content discussed would be to use Posts (over a period of time – say 6/7 weeks) for each of the Keynote Presentations. These Posts will include information about the presenters, reading material that has been made available and interesting points form both presentations and workshops.

Here’s a quote from the participant website that probably says it better than me:

“The School provides a balance of ‘big picture’ ideas and practical resources, of cutting-edge mathematics and pedagogic practices, international perspectives and local applications. Presenters have been drawn from universities, educational jurisdictions, schools and industry to provide the broadest possible range of stimulating material.

The 10 days is organised into five modules comprising keynote presentations, question time, workshop sessions, and small group tutorials:

• Frameworks – implications of cognitive neuroscience for pedagogy and the curriculum; assessment; the results of PISA 2006;
• Potential Difference – addressing the challenges of student diversity: gifted and talented; low-achievement; Indigenous students; gender issues; non-English speaking background students;
• Cutting-Edge Mathematics – hearing from mathematicians who live, breathe and apply mathematics in everyday life;
• Next Praxis – “digital-age” kids and the pedagogical and curriculum implications associated with engaging the current generation of learners; and
• World Class – the impact of particular learning strategies, feedback, and qualities of learning communities that achieve exceptional outcomes.”

https://sakai.une.edu.au/portal/site/project_mathematics

If you would like to provide any feedback about how I could improve these Posts it would be greatly appreciated. This might be best done by leaving comments on the blog.

If you wish to discuss the posts with one another this maybe should be done through the Summer School Topic on the Forum.

Disclaimer: Some of the material will come across as quite dry and dull…sorry about this in advance. BUT the one thing I did find throughout the 10 days was that it was all planned to a very high standard and all the pieces seemed to come together nicely. So i guess all I am saying, is give Maths a chance!!!

Cheers,

Mark