Day 9 - Create and Share

We made it! 

Kicking off the day listening to Dorothy speak about and share a heap of useful 'create' resources was quite motivating. I look forward to exploring and incorporating those links into my planning. I particularly liked the look of suno.ai - I have no doubt that would be a hit with some of my students.

Today's math talk topic was images. There were a heap of great images for us to use, but also the strong message was to find the right image, and plan for the maths talk. I quite enjoyed this and was surprised by the number of things to notice :)

 

The create and share sessions were a good reminder of how and why. Last year, we lost our way when we had a series of blog issues, and with that, we lost a good deal of best practices. I am looking forward to starting off the new year/new class with blogging being a focus again. As well as blogging, there were plenty of other avenues to be explored for sharing.

Thanks ladies for the opportunity to be a part of this. It's definitely not called Intensive for no reason :) I have gained so much out of this PD, and look forward to the incoming fine-tuning of my next year's planning!

Over and out.

 Day 8 - Statistics and probability

I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Data Talks today, as part of our learning on Statistics and Probability. The link to various useful graphs was really valuable, as I knew that I could choose the ones the students would relate to. My example today used the stats from Steph Curry's shooting stats, and for my basketball-mad, boy-heavy Year 8 class, that will be right up their alley. 

I also liked the slow-release graph, where looking at the graph, and the step-by-step introduction of information, created some interesting predictions. 

So what I have always just called the investigation cycle, turns out to be called by the acronym PPDAC. Who knew :)

We had a chance to explore Census at school, which I have used in the past. I checked the interactive maps, and this would definitely be an opportunity for some great 'I notice', and 'I wonder' statements. For example, the population on the West Coast dropped in 2018. This will have been directly related to the mines closing in 2017. However, the age of the students probably means they won't realise that. I think this will lead to some perfect integrated teaching moments. 

My question to finish is: in our current scope and sequence, which is well overdue to be updated, we always cover statistics as a unit at the start of the year. While  (in the ideal world) we aim to integrate this learning across the curriculum, do you think this is the best time of year for this focus? I see pros and cons, and it's been a question I have been pondering for a while now.