As part of the Champions of Maths journey, the teachers were invited to present their learnings and progress to parents, colleagues and the wider teaching community. Rachel Spalding takes us through the experience and recaps her year.
Hello everyone!
It’s Rachel Spalding again! You can read my first Blog post here, but for this second one, I’m here to wrap up our fantastic year as a qualified Champion of Maths! We’ve participated in many events over the year and I’d like to share as many of them with you as I can. For all we know, this could be you soon!
Back in Term 3, each of the four schools participating in the Champions of Maths program held a Parent Family Workshop at their own school.
At Glen Huon PS, students from my class, Susie’s class and Michael’s class were all invited together with their families to an afternoon filled with various problem-solving activities using the vertical whiteboards that we’ve been using in the program throughout the year. We were lucky to have such a great turnout of attendees who were happy to mingle and work with other families to solve the exciting Maths challenges and share their solutions.
Our next major event was a one-hour workshop delivery to the staff members of our school. We gave our colleagues an insight into the program and what it’s purpose is. We randomly grouped the teachers in our school, gave each group a vertical whiteboard and asked them to find out how many smarties were inside one tissue box. The feedback from our staff was fantastic and they asked for more opportunities to explore the different tasks we’ve done with our kids.
This event was the most nerve-racking, but the MOST rewarding experience for myself! We were required to develop a mini-presentation on a certain aspect of the course and present it to an audience of teachers. Susie and I delivered a 10-minute presentation on the 5 Planning Practices, focusing mostly on anticipating.
We had over 30 attendees at this two-hour event and it was pleasing to present to such a captive audience.
This was a fantastic night and excellent way to wrap up the end of our Alcoa Champions of Maths journey. All students and families of the nine participating teachers were invited to see us receive our awards, to meet Simon Pampena, maths comedian and numeracy ambassador who taught us how to make tri-hexaflexagons, and to enjoy a bite to eat together.
It was a fun and engaging night and families loved seeing our display boards around the room filled with photos and reflections of activities that the students had participated in over the year.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Shyam and all the other teachers who participated in the Alcoa Scitech Champions of Maths program this year. Shyam – we have learnt so much from you and you have been the best coach we could have asked for.
As for next year – Susie, Michael and I are planning to roll out our newly gained knowledge into our own school. We would ideally like to find some participants to work with in our own school and continue to help teachers change the way they view Mathematics – let’s all work together to make it fun, engaging and worthwhile!
Find out more about the Alcoa Maths Enrichment Program or read the next article.
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If you are interested in joining the Alcoa Maths Enrichment Program please fill out the enquiry form below and a Scitech representative will be in touch with you.
Scitech is a not-for-profit organisation proudly supported by the Western Australian Government through the Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation
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