2023 MTLC Master Class Webinar Series

Presenter: Doug Clarke (ACU)

Audience: Foundation to Year 6 teachers

Webinar Synopsis
How do we design mathematics learning experiences that are real world, rich, and rigorous? One way is to start with the things that interest our students. Drawing upon topics from Measurement, Statistics, and Number, Doug will share examples of classroom activities that start from the world of the student. In this webinar, the question, “what things fascinate the students you teach?” will act as a starting point. Several examples will be shared, and Doug will encourage participants to take one of the interests of their own students, and think about how they could make mathematics come alive, using this context as an inspiration for learning mathematics.

Presenter: Jodie Miller (University of Queensland)

Audience: Foundation to Year 6 teachers

Webinar Synopsis
Algebra is often thought to be a topic introduced to secondary school students. In fact, early exposure to algebraic thinking establishes important foundations that prepare students for success in mathematics in the later years of schooling. In the primary years, teachers and students explore tasks involving generalised arithmetic, patterning, equivalence, equations, expressions, and functions. In this webinar, Jodie will focus on teaching early algebra and developing algebraic reasoning within Foundation to Year 3 mathematics classrooms. Learning tasks designed to enact opportunities for students to develop a natural curiosity about number, patterns, and relationships will be highlighted.

Presenter:Carly Sawatzki (Deakin)

Audience:Years 4 to 8 teachers

Webinar Synopsis
Young people are exposed to financial information in tables, charts, and graphs through a range of everyday encounters. Examples include takeaway pricing, gaming platforms, and news reports. Mathematics lessons need to be designed in ways that prepare students to make sense of these representations and to support them to make informed financial decisions. In this webinar, Carly will share ideas for developing financial numeracy by experiencing modern examples. Task prompts that make mathematics meaningful for both students and teachers will also be shared with participants.

Presenter: Kate Highfield (ACU)

Audience: Early childhood educators; Foundation to Year 2 teachers

Webinar Synopsis
We are teaching in a digital age, with significant growth in online teaching during the last few years and increased use of digitals tools in many facets of our teaching lives. However, we need to take time to pause and question: how effective is this in mathematics education, particularly for our younger learners where concrete materials and visual representations are so important for robust conceptual understanding? In this webinar, Kate will explore tools that can promote deep mathematical learning and facilitate problem solving. Kate will share apps and other online resources for mathematics learning, focusing on how they align with pedagogic goals intended to build computational skills of young mathematics learners. 

Presenter: Peter Sullivan (Monash)

Audience: Foundation to Year 10 teachers

Webinar Synopsis
There is tension in both theory and practice between, on one hand, offering students opportunity to engage with mathematical ideas for themselves prior to instruction and, on the other hand, drawing on the wisdom and experience of the teacher with an ‘instruction first’ approach. In this webinar, Peter will discuss the benefits of prompting learning through students working mathematically on cognitively rich tasks supported by timely intervention to augment the learning through engagement with mathematical tasks. Peter will highlight how this is supported by the teachers’ own insights and experience using classroom examples to illustrate ways in which it is possible and desirable to draw on the advantages of both approaches.

Presenter: Ann Downton (Monash)

Audience: Foundation to Year 2 teachers

Webinar Synopsis
Division is often considered a challenging concept for children to learn in primary school. This is due to the level of abstraction required and the need to distinguish between the role of the divisor and quotient in division situations. In this webinar, Ann will share her recent research that found young children (aged 4 to 5) have some sense of division and dealing with remainders prior to instruction in Foundation classrooms. Participants will be given opportunities to engage in a range of games and activities that have the potential to extend young children’s initial ideas of division, their intuitive strategies, and their emergent multiplicative reasoning.  

Presenter: James Russo (Monash)

Audience: Foundation to Year 6 teachers; school maths leaders/numeracy coordinators

Webinar Synopsis
Teaching mathematics through challenging tasks has been increasingly emphasised over the past decade to support the development of mathematical proficiencies, particularly reasoning and problem solving. However, what this looks like in practice continues to evolve, as more is learnt about what works in a given instructional context. In this webinar, James will discuss three aspects of teaching with challenging tasks that are far more prominent today than they were a decade ago: preliminary experiences, spotlighting, and consolidating experiences. James will provide guidance about how teachers might explicitly incorporate these components more into their own practice with the intention of supporting them to effectively teach with challenging tasks.

Presenter: Aylie Davidson (Deakin)

Audience: Foundation to Year 6 teachers

Webinar Synopsis
A common tension for teachers when planning and teaching is to provide sufficient time for students to develop mathematical ideas in depth. Because of time pressures, it can be tempting to move quickly through the curriculum which can make it difficult for students to remember what they have learned. In this webinar, Aylie will share examples of ways that teachers can plan learning sequences based on theories of ‘variation’ and ‘consolidation’. Aylie will highlight how those examples enable students to experience the same mathematical idea in different ways. 

Presenter: Anne Roche (Monash)

Audience: Year 5 to Year 8 teachers

Webinar Synopsis
Teaching decimals to students in the upper primary and lower secondary years can be challenging, especially when we want students to understand them more than just symbols. In this webinar, Anne will explore several ‘big ideas’ of decimals, looking at some helpful assessment tasks for gauging what students know and can do in this area (including common misconceptions). Anne will highlight the use of the helpful model of the decimat, a powerful representation for decimals.  Participants will also experience a classroom activity (that can be used over and over again) that helps students to build place value understanding and number sense with decimals.

Presenter: Chrissy Monteleone

Audience: Early childhood educators; Foundation to year 6 teachers 

Webinar Synopsis
Critical mathematical thinking (CMT) is an important aspect of mathematical reasoning.  This type of thinking requires young children and students to think in different ways from interpretive to creative thinking. In this webinar, Chrissy will focus on learning experiences that assist young students to explain their critical mathematical thinking (CMT) and demonstrate their capabilities with this type of thinking. Chrissy will also elaborate on a research-informed conceptual framework, appropriate for early childhood and primary school teachers. Ideas to support learning experience design will be shared to support participants’ understanding of ways to create opportunities for young students to demonstrate their CMT.

Presenter: Claudia Orellana-Farias (ACU)

Audience: Year 5 to Year 8 teachers

Webinar Synopsis
It has long been acknowledged that technology has the potential to transform the way we teach and how students learn mathematics. In recent times, technology has also played a crucial role in allowing students to stay connected with their mathematics learning during remote learning practices. Technology can be utilised in a variety of different ways; sometimes as a replacement for less efficient by-hand processes, and at other times, to explore what would otherwise not be possible or feasible. In this webinar, Claudia will explore with participants the different roles technology can play in the mathematics classroom. Practical examples with a variety of digital tools will also be highlighted.

Presenter: Jill Brown (Deakin)

Audience: Year 3 to Year 8 teachers

Webinar Synopsis
Across Years 3 to 8, important geometric ideas related to 2D figures and 3D solids are a focus within mathematics curricula…but do those curriculum documents provide enough advice to go deeper with geometry in those years of schooling? Naming conventions, definitions, classification, and representations all play an important role in developing that deeper understanding of geometry, as long as they are presented in interesting and engaging ways for students. In this webinar, Jill will lead participants in consideration of how and why students should be highly engaged with geometry by exploring tasks that highlight those important aspects of deeper geometry learning.

Presenter:Linda Parish (ACU)

Audience:Foundation to Year 6 teachers

Webinar Synopsis
Knowing the needs of mathematically gifted students is important knowledge for classroom teachers to possess. This knowledge can support adjustments to teaching and learning that meets the needs of those students within regular maths lessons. In this webinar, Linda will provide insights into how schools and classroom teachers can best support successful ongoing learning of students who show above average mathematical ability. There will be a focus on recognising mathematically gifted traits in young learners, and an exploration of the difference between “high achievers” and “gifted learners”, including why this differentiation matters. 

Presenter: Martin Holt (ACU)

Audience: Foundation to Year 6 teachers

Webinar Synopsis
Teachers are eager to find better mathematical tasks that can stimulate interest, extend knowledge, and challenge all students. Tasks with this sort of potential are worth spending time on, but locating them can feel like a frustrating game of ‘Where’s Wally?’ In this webinar, Martin will highlight a selection of time-worthy tasks and explore their common attributes, building participants’ capacity to recognise and create their own time-worthy tasks for students. Martin will introduce a range of research-informed resource repositories where time-worthy tasks can be found to enrich upcoming and future units of work.  

Presenter: Matt Sexton (ACU)

Audience: School maths leaders; numeracy coordinators, teacher leaders

Webinar Synopsis
The core work of any mathematics leader, numeracy coordinator, or instructional leader is to design and facilitate professional learning for teachers in mathematics education. It can be daunting knowing how to engage with leadership work that influences teachers’ dispositions, pedagogical actions, and knowledge for effective mathematics teaching in schools. In this webinar, Matt will present several practical ideas, highlighting principles of mathematics professional development, that leaders can use to design and lead mathematics professional learning. Matt will bring attention to the importance of professional learning knowledge (PLK) as an important form of knowledge that mathematics leaders can use to lead teacher learning through school-based professional development.