AAMT e-news

for the Australian mathematics education community

14 August 2018

National Science Week

It's National Science Week (11–19 August)! You'll find all sorts of ideas and activities at www.scienceweek.net.au.

Let's Count online

The Smith Family's Let's Count program has launched a new professional development program for early childhood educators – and it's free! The first course starts on 20 August, so register now at https://letscount.thesmithfamily.com.au/register.

Mathspace Teacher Challenge

This is the first Mathspace challenge for teachers and is open to all Australian mathematics teachers – whether you currently use Mathspace or not!

Running over 4 weeks, everyone can use Mathspace for free. Your students’ growth will be tracked and the winning teacher will be the one who achieves the highest growth for the period.

The overall winning teacher will win dinner with Adam Spencer for your maths department, $10 000 for your school, and an entrepreneur workshop for your students!

The challenge starts 20 August. For more information and to register, go to https://mathspace.co/au/challenge.

[featured resource] Using Assessment to Improve Middle-Grades Mathematics Teaching and Learning

Carol S. Parke, Suzanne Lane, Edward A. Silver, Maria E. Magone

Using tasks that require students to think deeply about problem situations and communicate their mathematical understanding not only helps to determine students’ levels of proficiency but also provides insight into students’ mathematical thinking.

This book and its companion CD present a collection of 16 short tasks with sample responses, scoring rubrics and rationales explaining how the criteria were used to assign scores. The text also suggests six types of classroom activity which are illustrated using tasks and scoring materials. Besides classroom use, there are suggestions as to how the tasks and associated scoring materials might be useful for staff professional learning.

#NCT1055 $44.00 * AAMT members $35.20 *

www.aamt.edu.au/Webshop/Entire-catalogue/Using-Assessment-to-Improve-Middle-Grades-Mathematics-Teaching-and-Learning

[reduced] Cartoon Corner 2

Peggy A. House (ed.)

Engage students’ interest with the funny side of mathematics before progressing to activities on a variety of mathematical topics suitable for the middle years. The collection is organised into: numbers, numeration and computation; ratio, rates, fractions and percentages; measurement; consumer mathematics; algebraic thinking; geometric thinking; and data analysis, statistics and probability. Each cartoon is followed by a sequence of associated questions with detailed solutions. There are often challenge questions as well as other ideas for discussion and exploration.

#NCT621 $18.74 * AAMT members $15.00 *

While stocks last

www.aamt.edu.au/Webshop/Reduced/Cartoon-Corner-2

Download a complete PDF catalogue of resources sold by AAMT from www.aamt.edu.au/Webshop/Catalogue.