MathsCraft Teacher Professional Development Workshop (Adelaide)

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MathsCraft professional development workshop

Second workshop announced!

The MathsCraft team hosts the second maths teacher professional development one-day workshop in person at the University of Adelaide. This hands-on workshop is designed to help teachers give their students an authentic experience of ‘doing mathematics’ while at the same time supporting success in tests and examinations.

Enabling your students to work in a way that is similar to the way a research mathematician works can dramatically change the classroom experience, for the better. Would you like to find out how, for example, a topic like Pythagoras’ Theorem could be approached a little differently?

In their work, research mathematicians do not generally:

• Sit competitions
• Have daily lessons or lectures
• Study for tests and exams.

So what do they do? Among other things, they use mathematics they are operational with to solve problems, problems that they initially have no idea how to solve.

In this workshop you will be tasked with solving various ‘simple’ problems, and in doing so, a way of working will reveal itself that offers an alternative to teaching just the facts and processes associated with mathematical ideas. You will learn how to give your students an authentic experience of ‘doing maths’ in much the same way that professional mathematicians do.

About the Facilitators

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Anthony Harradine

Anthony Harradine began teaching mathematics in 1984. He has spent the last fifteen years trying to better understand his ‘failures’ of the previous twenty-one. His many mentors have taught him lots about mathematics and statistics, problem solving, and research. He likes nothing better than sharing ideas with anyone silly enough to listen. He really likes mathematics.

In the recent past his professional time has been filled with a variety of tasks that include: facilitator of problem-solving workshops, mathematical-person in residence, leader of a unique STEM project (eduKart), Advisory Board Member (The University of Adelaide, Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences), Prime Ministerial working group member (Transforming Learning and the Transmission of Knowledge), consultant, web application developer, curriculum writer and teacher.

Anthony is the Director of the Potts-Baker Institute operating out of Prince Alfred College.

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Anita Ponsaing

Dr Anita Ponsaing works at the University of Adelaide as the coordinator of the MathsCraft program. After completing her PhD in mathematical physics at the University of Melbourne in 2011, she spent three years doing research in statistical physics in Europe before returning to Australia.

She loves helping others to see the beauty in maths, and is fascinated by the way people interact with mathematical questions: particularly the role that intuition plays and how it can be developed. In 2015 she attended her first MathsCraft session, and since then has become the program's in-house mathematician.

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Nigel Bean

Professor Nigel Bean is an internationally known researcher in stochastic modelling at the University of Adelaide, where he is now an Adjunct Professor. Nigel was a founding member of ACEMS, where he also held the role of Deputy Director for Outreach. He is the Director of Sum Beans Pty Ltd.

Nigel is a past member of the Board of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute and was a member of the Mathematics Advisory Panel for the Australian Curriculum in 2011 and 2012. Nigel is an Ambassador for ‘Numerical Acumen’ and is incredibly passionate about the MathsCraft program.