Monthly Archives: April 2014

THREE TOPICS FOR DARWIN/NT TEACHER PROF DEV

Prov. Dev.

alphabetSortingby Ian Roberts   Email: Ian.Roberts@cdu.edu.au   SMS 0403406999

Here are three PD Activities for this  term. Continue reading to read my email about how to respond.  

ACTIVITY 1: Working on Year 10 (or senior) ‘Maths that we’re teaching now’ A small community of teachers with similar issues. Tutorial support for teachers on the maths they are teaching. Tutorials will be driven by needs of teachers and foster collegial support and sharing resources. When: Sunday 9.30-11.30 May  4, 11, 18, 25 Where: Casuarina – venue advised to those who reply Cost: $10 per session. Ask your school to pay, and there’s good coffee. Reply needed: before 1pm Saturday 3rd. A

ACTIVITY 2: Enrichment for kids and teachers  This is based around AMT activities such as the AMT Challenge. Years 5-11. Kids will be challenged. An attempt will be made to identify kids suitable for more enrichment leading to AMT Olympiad opportunities (by Invitation).   Senior school students or those participating in AMT Challenge, Competitions or interested in Maths Olympiad are particularly encouraged. Parents may attend and participate. Teachers are encouraged to use this as a PD and support opportunity, with or without students. Where: St John’s – meet outside the main office of the school at 330pm. When: Wednesday 330-5pm May 7, 14, 21. Then June if demand is there. Cost: $5 per session. Reply needed: before 4pm Monday 5th.

ACTIVITY 3: Supporting numeracy from year 2 to year 12. Next PD: An exciting new venue. Roesbery Middle School (for Friday). Friday evening:  importance of prime numbers. Bringing together number, geometry, clocks, arithmetic, pre-algebra, algebra, polynomials, real and complex numbers, and secret messages. This is related to the two previous PDs this year. We all do some maths with real ideas to take away to your own class level. Saturday: Developing enrichment problems for the MS camp in August. When: Friday May 9 arrive from 5 for a 5.15 start. Finish at 7 sharp. A subsidised maths community dinner follows. Saturday 930am-12 noon at Casuarina. Reply needed: before 4pm Wednesday 7th. Continue reading THREE TOPICS FOR DARWIN/NT TEACHER PROF DEV →

Rainbow Serpent: Connecting Mathematics and Aboriginal Culture

Uncategorized,

RainbowSerpentby Mike Fellows and Frances Rosamond

Colouring a graph properly (no adjacent vertices can receive the same colour) is important in scheduling (classrooms, jobs, exams, resources). The vertices represent the jobs. An edge between two vertices indicates a conflict.  Colours are the timeslots. Two jobs cannot be assigned the same timeslot or else they will be in conflict (both rely on a shared resource, for example).

Colouring a graph leads us to a Rainbow Serpent story. The snake has colourful stripes like a rainbow. Like a rainbow,  no two colours are repeated (i.e., no two adjacent stripes have the same colour).  Rainbow Serpent likes to be present and observe everything, but remain hidden. Sometimes the Rainbow Serpent will surface to talk to the people and teach them. The vertices on the graph represent places where the snake might be. If two adjacent vertices are coloured the same, then we know the snake is not there. In order to see Rainbow Serpent, colours must not be repeated.  Continue reading Rainbow Serpent: Connecting Mathematics and Aboriginal Culture →

USING THE SORTING NETWORK FOR POLITICAL STREET THEATRE – PERFORMANCE AT THE FRANKFURT STOCK MARKET

Uncategorized

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

By Verena Specht-Ronique

We used a sorting network for a street performance that was performed in front of the Frankfurt stock market. The idea was to juxtapose the homeless of the city with bankers. The slogan of the performance was: It‘s always worth looking behind the façade. Our aim was to look for a way to unmask or break both the social roles of the homeless and the bankers. We showed by very simple means a theatrical metamorphosis from a homeless person to a banker and vice versa.

Continue reading USING THE SORTING NETWORK FOR POLITICAL STREET THEATRE – PERFORMANCE AT THE FRANKFURT STOCK MARKET →