2006 Newsletter No. 3

Hello MAWA members!

We at MAWA hope your working year is settling in well and your students are progressing towards their desired outcomes.

It has been an interesting month. Our wonderful, long term Treasurer, Ray Leeman, has taken six months leave of absence from the MAWA Committee to work in Vietnam. We wish him well and hope he has amazing experiences (all good, of course). MAWA’s Membership and Services Convenor, Paul Swan, has volunteered to take over this exacting job for the time Ray is away. Thank you, Paul, for stepping into what many regard as hard shoes to fill.

By the time you read this, the 2006 Have Sum Fun competitions will be over. I’d like to thank Jack Bana for the amazing job he performs ensuring that all our student activities are of the highest standard. HSFOL ('Have Sum Fun OnLine') is expanding and proving popular at a national level. This will raise the status, and hence the voice, of MAWA. Mark Graber is assisting in this success with responsibility for the dedicated HSFOL website.

The Primary PD panel have initiated a new approach to MAWA primary professional development. They are offering their services to primary schools for school-based afternoon workshops. This may be particularly useful to those schools wishing to access First Steps. Please contact the MAWA offi ce if you would like more information on this.

Both the Primary and Secondary PD panels have been investigating the Scitech travelling Maths roadshow. If you have had this event at your school please let us know what you think. Is it a good idea for MAWA to have Scitech demonstrate their roadshow to teachers? Let us know and it will be organised.

The Secondary PD panel organised two very popular workshops. Both were fi lled to capacity and feedback from both Mark Newhouse’s session on making judgements using the Progress Maps and Mark O’Brien’s and Michelle Östberg’s session on their approach to creating a programme and resources for the Number and Change course were booked out well in advance. Feedback from these sessions indicate repeats are required. Look out for these repeats later in the year and at the State Conference and the Secondary Convention.

In future, popular afternoon workshops, like Donna Miller’s and Alison Walker's on Wednesday 5 April (providing an update for the Senior Schooling Courses of Study) will be held at a larger venue to avoid turning teachers away. (The revised versions of the three Mathematics CoS may be available by the time this session runs.)

Next term, Glenys Stade and Paula McMahon from Hampton Senior High are presenting a workshop on how they have found making assessments with the Outcomes and Standards Framework easier and less time consuming. Like many teachers in a variety of schools they have found how to make outcomes work for their students while not burdening teachers with unreasonable workloads. Teachers cannot afford to keep reinventing the wheel and we need to access this type of support from our fellow teachers. I encourage you to negotiate, if possible, to attend this workshop as part of your time trade off if that is relevant to you. Even if this is not possible or relevant the workshop should be very helpful. Every exchange of ideas helps lighten our loads.

Speaking of the State Conference, Paul Brown has been working hard to ensure this year's annual conference is refreshingly different and innovative. All sessions and workshops will be held at the Edith Cowan University campus. If you are planning to attend the State Conference and would like to give a workshop session, particularly on anything that helps teachers of Mathematics with teaching to and assessing on outcomes, please contact the MAWA office. We look forward every year to this event and we welcome new attendees – especially new teachers. Networking and social events remain a key feature of the State Conference but be prepared to work hard at the workshop sessions also.

Speaking of networking and social occasions, MAWA recently held a successful wine and cheese evening at the Paradiso Cinema. This was followed by a viewing of the excellent fi lm, Proof. The general concensus is that the fi lm is brilliant and well worth seeing. David and Margaret (film reviewers on the ABC) said they thought it became bogged down in the Maths in the middle of the fi lm but, unsurprisingly, we did not find that a problem!

When you see the film, see if you can spot the moment all the MAWA members burst out laughing. This moment is particularly for those of us who attend the State Conference. Enjoy.

And finally, I would like to thank the MAWA office staff. Their unstinting work in ensuring all the above events, and much more, occur without a hitch and are successful cannot be praised highly enough. While the members are the backbone of MAWA, they are the nerve centre keeping it all moving. Thank you ladies.

Have a great holiday after this long term. You all deserve it.

Cheers

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2006 Newsletter No. 3 (91kb)