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MANSW Conference (1 Viewer)

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buchanan

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1st day.

Forgot to take my toothbrush! Bought one.

6am Breakfast. Brilliant! Better than Wollongong which started at 6.30am.

Hotel only has SMHs. Had to go for a walk to get my Daily Telegraph and Australian. This contrasts with last year at Wollongong, which had all three.

These are the ones I went to.

8am Registration.

9am Welcome by Holly Gyton and Margaret Bigelow.

9.15am Douglas Butler. What can technology add to the Mathematics Classroom?

During his presentation, he got disconnected from the internet by the hotel's proxy server, ruining part of his presentation. He managed to get through in difficult circumstances with the rest of his presentation which turned out OK in the end anyway.

11am Peter Osland, Mararet Bigelow, Chris Thompson. Secondary - Board of Studies - Update and Assessment issues.

This is the only session I went to in which I took notes.

Key Issues:

- Suitable course for each student

- Declining candidature for 2 Unit. We should rename "Mathematics". It shouldn't be called "Advanced Mathematics".

- Whether to include stats beyond General Maths?

- Diversity of views about technology.

12noon Michael Cavanagh. Secondary teachers and new syllabus.

He got feedback from teachers about implementation of new 7-10 syllabus. There were many complaints about the whole process.

1pm Thanom Shaw. Introducing LaTeX.

This was brilliant! There should be more of these. I am sick of maths documents being typed up in Word. LaTeX is the proper way to type maths.

2pm Paul Ayres. Value of HSC for Tertiary.

He was quite impressive. He presented results of a survey of academics about what is most needed for the HSC 2-3-4 unit courses.

3pm Peter Coutis. What should be in Extension Maths.

He started solving complicated differential equations and was challenged as to whether that should be in high school maths. Garry Webb (who was sitting right behind me) suddenly leapt to his defence. That shut up the dissenters!

4.20pm Paul Ayres and Suzanne Walker. Graphics Calculators in Stage 6.

This was a bombshell! Someone has to do it - and good on them for doing so, I reckon.

Paul's part had an error in the naming of what he wants. He said we should not "mandate" graphics calculators in examinations. This caused confusion and a heated debate ensued with the audience. I corrected him and said that he should have said graphics calculators should not be "permitted" in examinations. He agreed.

However despite the error, I leapt to his defence because his basic message is correct. The research into educational benefit of graphics calculators is a bit wanting. Until this is rectified, I agree with Paul's conclusion (corrected version) that graphics calculators should not be permitted in examinations.

6pm Abacus Calculators free drinks.

I spoke to Nikki Vanderhaut who said the 2006 HSC solutions committee (which I have been invited to participate in again) has been moved back a week.

Now I'll turn my computer off and decide which ones I go to tomorrow.
 
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buchanan

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Day 2

Note: It was announced this morning that next year's MANSW conference is at Port Macquarie, Sept. 30 - Oct. 2, 2007.

Today, I went to the following:

9am Jamie McKenzie. Playing the numbers.

It's up on the net at http://fno.org/oct04/numeracy.ppt.ppt

10.40am Christopher O'Brien. Teaching with Powerpoint.

11.40am Alexander Young. Asssessing learning efficiently

12.40pm Nikky Vanderhaut. Parametric Parabola.

1.40pm Jamie McKenzie. The Power of Numbers.

2.40pm Stephen Curtis. Maths exams 1850-2005.

4pm Rhys Williams. Whiteboardmaths - maths lessons on Powerpoint.

7.30pm MANSW Dinner. I had a big argument with Margaret Bigelow about whether or not to include Fermat's Last Theorem in the new Stage 6 syllabus. I'm all for it, and she's dead-set against it. We still have not resolved our differences on this issue.
 
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Day 3

9am Peter Fox. Calculus Exploration.

We had to solve a calculus problem by graphics calculator. But I got there early. So I did an experiment. Before it started, with pen and paper only, I timed myself to solve the problem. It took me 8 minutes and I got an exact answer. Then the session started. It took the whole hour to do it by graphics calculator and we only got an approximate answer. Doesn't say much for graphics calculators, does it? I pointed this out to the presenter at the end.

But what disturbs me more is that if he taught it this way students would learn a lot about pressing buttons, and nothing at all about calculus.

10am Janice Lawrenz. Lessons adapted from the internet.

11.30am Morris Needleman. Lovely Problems Elegant Solutions.

12.30pm John Brodie. What's wrong with Geometry?

1.30pm Anthony Mahony. Ideas for teaching Algebra, Probability and Number.

2.30pm Clio Cresswell. Mathematics and Sex.
 
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buchanan said:
Day 3

9am Peter Fox. Calculus Exploration.

We had to solve a calculus problem by graphics calculator. But I got there early. So I did an experiment. Before it started, with pen and paper only, I timed myself to solve the problem. It took me 8 minutes and I got an exact answer. Then the session started. It took the whole hour to do it by graphics calculator and we only got an approximate answer. Doesn't say much for graphics calculators, does it? I pointed this out to the presenter at the end.

But what disturbs me more is that if he taught it this way students would learn a lot about pressing buttons, and nothing at all about calculus.


2.30pm Clio Cresswell. Mathematics and Sex.
Click to expand...
haha go Buchanan!, zomg Maths Teachers talking about sex...
 
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buchanan

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Yep. Especially for teachers - but maybe also for serious maths students.

I typed up the notes yesterday which was a bit of a rush job. So I've fine-tuned it (apologies if that means you have to download again).
 
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