In January, ACEMS ran its second 5-day residential professional development workshop for maths teachers who want to become MathsCraft Session Leaders. The workshop was held at St Hilda’s College at the University of Melbourne, and attended by 18 teachers from Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide.
On the second day a mini student session was held, to show the teachers what MathsCraft is all about. This was attended by 16 students from around Melbourne. It was fantastic to see these kids enthusiastic and ready to do maths on a Sunday morning during their summer holidays!
The teachers also had the opportunity to work closely with research mathematicians, including ACEMS Associate Investigators Anthony Mays and Jason Whyte and ACEMS Research Fellow Rhys Bowden.
What is Mathscraft, how does it work?
Feedback from the teachers was extremely positive. Comments suggest that they appreciated the practical nature of the sessions, being given the time to fully immerse themselves in the maths, and the collaborative, supportive environment that arose between the participants. 13 teachers responded to the feedback survey, and like the inaugural workshop in 2016 every respondent gave 7/7 when asked how worthwhile they found the workshop.
