PRIMARY ADDITION NEWS, TIPS AND STRATEGIES FOR TEACHERS - TERM 4, 2016 Welcome to the Term 4 issue of Primary Addition, the publication for our community of primary school teachers around Australia and New Zealand. The Maths Olympiads and Maths Games competitions are The official launch of the Maths Games this year was an over for another year. 2016 has certainly proved to be one incredible success, with 398 teams comprising 8,735 students of our most exciting and successful to date! In the Division participating in the program's first year. Designed to provide J (Primary) Olympiads 1,388 teams comprising 32,963 mainstream students with the opportunity to challenge students were registered in the Division J Olympiads. This is not only an outstanding show of support for the program, but also an indication of the dedication of teaching staff who are committed to improving their students' mathematical problem solving abilities. Your commitment was certainly reflected this year with 324 students in Division J achieving a perfect score the highest number of perfect scores in the history of the Olympiad! themselves and extend their mathematical problem solving ability, it has provided a genuine stepping stone to the longstanding Maths Olympiads for many students and appears to be a very welcome addition to APSMO's suite of maths resources and programs. Our professional learning courses for teachers have also finished for the year and were very well-received. We are pleased to advise that we recently held our first regional Our congratulations go to the following schools in particular course on the NSW Central Coast and our first interstate on their amazing results in 2016. This year there are five joint course in Melbourne. Look out for more programs around winners for the Australian Schools and one winner for the the country next year. non-australian Schools sections - each school receives a place on our annual Honour Roll as a 2016 "Team of the Year": 2016 Teams of the Year Australian Schools: We hope you find the information in this issue of Primary Addition interesting and that each and every one of you enjoys a well deserved break over the Christmas and New Year holiday period. Don't forget to make a note of the key dates for the 2017 Olympiads! Beecroft Public School (NSW) Boroondara Park Primary School (VIC) Greystanes Public School (NSW) North Rocks Public School (NSW) Smithfield Public School (NSW) Non-Australian Schools: Bucklands Beach Intermediate School (NZ) Jon Phegan Executive Director, APSMO 2017 EARLY BIRD REGO KEY DATES FOR 2017 Early Bird Registration for the 2017 Olympiad and Maths Games CLOSES 31 DECEMBER 2016. The Maths Olympiads and Maths Games will be held on the following dates in 2017. Schedule them into your school planner now! Register ONLINE before then to receive your discounted rate! 17 MAY, 14 JUNE, 26 JULY, 16 AUG, 6 SEPT
Professional Learning Update Following the success of our inaugural professional development programs in early 2016, we are delighted to advise that in Terms 3 and 4 of this year, our Professional Development courses began to travel further afield. It was lovely to meet Victorian teachers at the Waverley Golf Club, southern Sydney teachers at South Hurstville RSL, and teachers from the NSW Central Coast at St Therese's Primary School in New Lambton. We would particularly like to thank the teachers at St Therese for generously hosting our most recent course. It has been a privilege to work with, and learn from, all of the teachers at these courses. Over the year our courses have become richer, as we extend them to include teaching strategies that we have learned from attendees we have met along the way. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has attended one of our programs in 2016 for generously sharing their experiences, and we hope you were able to take as much out of attending the course as Strategies for Teaching Problem Solving in Mathematics The APSMO Professional Learning course equips teachers with a number of strategies to promote the learning of maths problem solving in the classroom. An emphasis is placed on collaborative learning as teachers engage in workshop activities in groups and contribute to whole group discussion. There are three modules relating specifically to the Working Mathematically strand of the NSW K-10 Mathematics syllabus: Module A (PS301) Patterns and Algebraic Thinking Module B (PS302) Using Visual Representations Module C (PS303) Logical and Spatial Thinking we have from presenting. We are looking forward to expanding our programs even further APSMO Inc. is endorsed by Board of Studies in 2017 and hope to be able to meet many more of you then. Teaching & Educational Standards NSW (BOSTES) Completing Strategies for Teaching Problem Solving in Mathematics will contribute 6 hours of QTC Registered PD addressing 1.2.2, 1.5.2, 2.1.2, 3.4.2, 3.5.2, 5.1.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW. Pauline Kohlhoff, Course Presenter Senior Maths Development Manager, APSMO Inc. Professional Learning 2017 Courses are being planned for the following locations (dates and venues TBC) : TERM 1 2017 TERM 2 2017 NSW NSW BRISBANE VICTORIA GOLD COAST If your school is interested in hosting a course, please contact Pauline Kohlhoff: pkohlhoff@aspmo.edu.au
Your Say... In late term 3 this year we conducted an online survey of primary school PICOs (Person In Charge of Olympiads) requesting feedback on both the Olympiads and the Maths Games. The results have now been collated and we were delighted to receive your feedback on the competitions. Some of the more interesting results and comments from the PICOs are outlined below. Your feedback is always welcome and we would be happy to hear your thoughts on the Maths Olympiads and Maths Games at any time. Feel free to contact us at: feedback@apsmo.edu.au with any questions or comments. Feedback on the Maths Olympiads (from 348 responses) Feedback on the Maths Games (from 108 responses) Almost 93% of schools who participate in the Olympiads offer it as an extension activity for talented students or their top maths group Over 82% of schools participating prepared students for the Maths Games (in class or in sessions outside of class time) 53% of schools give their students weekly practice sessions Almost 90% of teachers found the Maths Games Resource Kits to be very/extremely helpful Nearly 24% of schools take students out of normal classes for the Olympiads, while around 7% say their students complete the papers at lunchtime or before/after school Just over half of the students found the Maths Games to be "very challenging" 85% of teachers review the Olympiad questions and solutions with students after each paper as an instructional session for their class "[We are] allowing the regular students to participate in an APSMO activity at the same time as the extension students do Olympiad practice & tests. ALL Stage 3 students now have an opportunity to do some quality problem solving" Comments from PICOs included: "The children become increasingly enthusiastic toward the Olympiad as the year progressed. It is a valuable enrichment activity." "It's fun to teach... and challenges the teacher too sometimes!" "Thank you for a variety of quality questions. Some carry over into the following paper may be useful for at least one question." "We are a small school so include Year 4 students and they have done very well. Maths is now seen by some students as a skill to be proud of and confidence is growing." "Love reviewing questions the students got incorrect and seeing the 'ah-ha' moment they understand where they went wrong. Students appreciate seeing how others work out the same problem." "Even those students who did not score very well felt that their skills in problem solving had improved through practice in answering particular types of questions." Comments from PICOs included: "A great transition towards the Maths Olympiads. At our school we ran both for the first time, Year 6 students participated in the Olympiads with Year 5 participating in Math Games. Next year the Year 5 students will move into the Olympiads." "Clever questions, stimulating problem-solving thinking. The hints on the question sheet are very useful, and the students noticed that independently." "Exposing students to open-ended problem solving over and above what they would get from normal curriculum delivery. Some of my students who didn't have much mathematical confidence prior to competing have grown immensely over the last two terms. They are excited about their abilities and have gained so much knowledge. The engagement and passion for maths amongst this group is incredible" "The Resource Kits are AMAZING. Really supportive for both teachers and students." "Support materials meant the students were directed to certain strategies, making them more successful on the contests."
CONGRATULATIONS! All of the survey responses we received this year were entered into a prize draw. The five lucky schools below each receive a complimentary set of APSMO resource books: Catherine McAuley Primary School, Orange NSW Scoresby Primary School, VIC Torrens Primary School, ACT Summerdale Primary School, TAS Miami State School, QLD Note: Winning schools were randomly selected from a list of all 2016 survey respondents. Schools are shown in the order drawn. TRIAL THE MATHS GAMES FOR 2017 For those schools that didn't take the opportunity to participate in the Maths Games this year, why not trial the 2016 papers in preparation for entering the 2017 Maths Games? 2016 Maths Games papers will be available to trial in Term 4, 2016 and Term 1, 2017... see for yourself how the Maths Games can be used in your school as both a valuable teaching resource AND as a transition to the Maths Olympiads. For more information please visit our website: www.mathsgames.edu.au
2016 Maths Olympiads Division J Round-up The Olympiads are designed to give students the opportunity to think about maths in different and, hopefully, interesting ways. By discussing solution methods after each Olympiad, students learn to articulate their thinking and begin to appreciate that there is more than one way to approach each question. The trouble with this approach however is that, if a question is particularly challenging and only a small number of students manage to work through it, then sometimes the number of solution methods up for discussion can be quite limited. In such instances the discussion can be supplemented by the solution methods provided by APSMO. Even so, the APSMOsupplied methods are not exhaustive, and sometimes they may neglect to include strategies that might be more circuitous, but perhaps more accessible to the students. As an example, we might consider Question 3E in the 2016 Junior Olympiad. The discussion of challenging problems can be greatly helped by modelling the scenario with concrete materials or, in this case, perhaps by asking two students to act out the parts of Betty and Veronica. If Betty and Veronica pretend to mow a lawn each, then Veronica will finish first. She can look bored, glance at her watch, ask Betty to hurry up or, what else could she do? Well, perhaps she could go and mow another lawn. Betty's Division J. Olympiad 3, Question E still working for another 30 minutes, after all. Then, at some Betty can mow a lawn by herself in 90 minutes. How many lawns did they mow? Can we break the original Veronica can mow the same lawn by herself in 60 minutes. Each using her own mower, Betty and Veronica mow the lawn at the same time. How many minutes would it take them to mow the lawn? point, they both finish at the same time when would this be? lawn into that many sections, and then get them to mow just one section at a time? After the students have had a bit of fun play-acting this scenario, they might be ready to try the follow-up question. In the case of Question 3E, the follow-up question does not lend itself to exactly the same method, as it asks about the scenario in reverse. Depending on your class, you can judge whether the reversed question is appropriate students will have had to demonstrate that they really understand; or, if they're not quite ready to do that, you could just make up a similar question that could be solved by applying the strategy This was successfully solved by about 10% of students, which was a very good result for such a difficult question, but we from the play-acting. As we all know, the feeling of success is very important. can reasonably infer from this that a fair number of students There will always be time later to try changing the question struggled to make it work. Looking at the APSMO supplied around. solutions in this case, a teacher could verify the correctness of the answer but the explanation may be too brief and concise (and full of fractions) to help students to make sense of the structure of the problem, or give them strategies they could try when attempting a similar problem at a later date. 2016. Maths Olympiad and Maths Games questions and solutions are copyright. Australasian Problem Solving Mathematical Olympiads (APSMO) Inc.
2016 Maths Games Round Up In this case, the resource kit deliberately kept the wording The successful launch of the Maths Games in 2016 gave the difficulty was differentiated, the same teaching method mainstream Years 5 and 6 students, or high-achieving could be used for both questions. However, particularly if younger students in Years 3 and 4, an opportunity to students are unfamiliar with the concept of an average, the participate in a mathematical problem solving activity. The same question might be asked like this: similar between the Set A and Set B problems so that, while Games were designed as a direct result of the feedback received from teachers in recent years and we have been delighted by the way in which schools have responded to the program. One of the most common points raised in our surveys regarding the Maths Games was the value of the Resource Kits we have prepared. Below we explain a little further how they may be used. The Maths Games teaching resource kits each include three sets of problems. The first two of these, Set A and Extension, are based mainly on questions from past Junior Olympiad papers. The third set, Set B, is based on Set A, but is designed to Alex, Ben and Charlie went trick-ortreating. Alex collected 7 sweets. Ben collected 5 sweets. When they got home, the three boys shared their sweets out equally, and found they ended up with 8 sweets each. How many sweets did Charlie collect while trick-or-treating? be more accessible to students who may be less confident mathematically. It is important to note that, in general, the Set B questions require students to use similar strategies Given the second version of this problem, the students end to those used for solving their Set A counterparts. The up doing exactly the same maths but the wording (while differences are usually in the layout and wording of the longer) is probably less complicated for them to decipher. If it question, and the choice of number. is likely to help your students to make sense of the question, It is often the case that a maths problem is hard for students because the numbers are big or the wording is complicated. Learning to overcome these obstacles is certainly an important skill for problem-solving, but sometimes particularly when teaching - we can improve the experience for the students if we are able to proactively remove the impediments ourselves. This allows us to make use of all kinds of problems, regardless of difficulty level. then it may be worth re-wording the question before they give it a go. We can always teach the deciphering strategy such as replacing "average" with "equal share" after students are presented with a question containing the complicated maths word. However, this means there is likely to be a lot of teacher-talk, which may be less helpful if we are trying to get the students to realise they can actually do the maths themselves. Sometimes it is better to just change For example, in the teaching resource kit for Maths Games the question upfront, whether it is in the wording or the 3, there is a question about averages. The Set A question numbers used (or both), and then see if that might be just asks students to work backwards from the average of five enough help for students to make their own discoveries. numbers. The corresponding Set B question asks: The average of three numbers is 8. Two of the numbers are 7 and 5. What is the value of the third number? 2016. Maths Olympiad and Maths Games questions and solutions are copyright. Australasian Problem Solving Mathematical Olympiads (APSMO) Inc. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)