NZL One - Two - Three

Malo e lelei.  It's Tongan Language Week all week. Uike Kātoanga’i ‘o e Lea Faka-Tonga. Did you know? With a population of over 106,000 people, Tonga is an archipelago of 169 islands (of which 36 are inhabited). The 175th largest country in the world in terms of area, Tonga consists of 748 square kilometres of land scattered over roughly 700,000 square kilometres of ocean. Do you know about  Coconet TV , a national treasure and fantastic classroom resource. What could we do in maths classrooms? Taha .   Learn the Tongan number system 0= noa     1= taha     2= ua    3= tolu     4= fā,  5= nima    6= ono    7= fitu    8= valu     9= hiva 10 is  hongofulu  (hoh-ngoh-foo-loo)   100 is  teau  (teh-ah-oo) every other number is made up of the words for 0-9 with 3 exceptions sixteen is one six taha o...

The longest night is behind us and its time to look forward to the days getting longer and the calendar of events for Term 3 Kalman Awards - apply now!  The Margaret and John Kalman CharitableTrust is again generously supporting the achievements of secondary Mathematics and Statistics teachers in the Auckland region. John Kalman was a professor of Mathematics at the University of Auckland from 1964 to 1993, and a leading promoter of Mathematics in New Zealand. The inaugural winners  were Subash Chandar K, Ormiston College and Mala Nataraj, Selwyn College. They each received a prize of $5000 from the Margaret and John Kalman Trust. In addition they spent a day at the Department with 30 of their students. Students made Enigma machines with Pringles tubes and conjectured and generalised about “stacks of cans”. Tanya Evans spoke about employment and careers for those with a Mathematics degree and students were intrigued to view and learn about a Gomboc. One stu...

There is a tendency for us all to look off shore for expertise, however many countries look to NZ as a world leader in education. In this post I have gathered together links to sites of NZ teachers and schools that are leading the way in open sharing of their resources for math & stats teaching and learning.  I am aways in awe of how teachers manage to complete these sites on top of everything else that is part of a teachers life. If you have a site or know of other sites let me know and i will update this post STEM Online  -  A resource for NZ students by NZ teachers Hosted under the University of Auckland learning management system CANVAS which requires a double sign up. The effort is worth making, to access the rich resource that STEM Online offers us. Resources for tables equations and graphs (AS 91028) are live and more is in the pipeline for other standards. Nayland College  is world famous in NZ for their    maths & stats site ....

Communication and collaboration are touted as essential skills for the modern workplace. Being able to think creatively and articulate your thoughts is a highly valued skill in an increasingly competitive world. Encouraging talk in maths classes not only helps prepare students for the modern workplace, it also builds competency in reading and writing (Britton, 1970). "Mathematics is a language that enables us to describe and model situations, think logically, frame and sustain arguments and communicate ideas with precision. Students do not know mathematics until they can 'speak' it. Interpretations for concepts remain mere ‘shadows’ unless they are articulated through language. We find that many students have never had much opportunity to articulate their understanding publicly. " Maths Assessment project Maths Solution s suggest that getting students to talk in maths classes also supports: robust learning by boosting memory deeper reasoning language deve...

When students are curious they are more likely to be engaged. But why? What, is curiosity and how does it work? A study published in the journal Neuron suggests that the brain's chemistry changes when we become curious, helping us better learn and retain information .  In their study  Grubner and Ranganath(2014)  explored how curiosity influences memory. They found that  states of high curiosity enhance both the learning of interesting information, and also the more boring stuff.   Applying this to the classroom maybe we could interpret this as  "students will learn more about topics they are curious about" The authors of the study also discussed how   much of what a person experiences in a day is forgotten.  This made me wonder, how much of what happens during an average school day do our students remember?  How do we get students excited and curious about mathematics? Do we uncover the magic? Eddie Woo, Mathematics tea...

My first making connections post was about making the connections between strands of the maths &  stats curriculum. This post is about making connections between people. He aha te mea nui o te ao. He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people. Thinking about this whakatauki and our our first two Team days of 2018 I decided that this year that I would be more explicit about the place of whakawhanaungatanga in my practice. Whanaungatanga :  (noun) relationship, kinship, sense of family connection - a relationship through shared experiences and working together which provides people with a sense of belonging. It develops as a result of kinship rights and obligations, which also serve to strengthen each member of the kin group. It also extends to others to whom one develops a close familial, friendship or reciprocal relationship. As we worked together in our teams of three, lear...

Today  Ormiston Senior College opened their doors to mathematics teachers to share how they are personalising learning utilising technology. Teachers came from Albany in the north to Onewhero is the south. I was definitely the kid with a new toy as I learned to drive a sphero. With a bit of trial and error however the sphero was off. I think the best day of school just got better. Many thanks to Ormiston Senior College, Subash and his department for hosting us - A great morning - lots of learning - and lots of ideas shared. Next stop Auckland Maths Association   AGM & Quiz Night Get a team (of 4) together  or join a team on the night Wednesday February 28th  Mt Eden Bowling Club, Epsom Ave, Epsom. Happy Hour 6-7pm AGM followed by quiz night, 

With the  census  looming on March 6th 2018 we have an authentic context for our stats teaching and for meeting the intent  of The New Zealand Curriculum. advertising the 2013 census TKI  notes Students can: demonstrate the curriculum vision of being connected, actively involved, lifelong learners explore the future focused issues of sustainability, citizenship, and globalisation consider the NZC values of diversity, respect, community, and participation make use of key competencies, especially using language, symbols, and texts, relating to others, thinking, and participating and contributing In Maths & stats students may meet acheivement objectives by designing and conducting their own census investigations using the statistical enquiry cycle evaluating their findings analysing the findings of the 2018 census and those of previous years evaluating the effectiveness of different data displays. TKI  has  links  to a numb...