Here are some brief thoughts and notes about MathsConf21,
which took place in Peterborough on Saturday 12 October 2019.
Background
It was my first time at MathsConf (which is one reason I
wanted to blog about it: to tell people who have never been how good it
was!). These happen three times a year
in England, on a Saturday, and there was a real buzz. It was clear that while lots of those who
attended were local to Peterborough there were others who had travelled a
considerable distance and who were MathsConf regulars!
It’s a conference in a day, with plenary speeches, workshop
sessions to choose from, exhibition stalls, the famous tuckshop and other
events, such as the TweetUp during lunchtime.
Introductory
plenary
After the welcome from Mark McCourt came the big Steve
Jobs-style announcement. The brilliant
maths education software Autograph has been bought by La Salle (the
organisers of MathsConf) and will be free for everyone to use! Moreover, there will be (around Easter 2020)
a browser-based version, which will presumably allow it to be used on
Chromebooks and on PCs/Macs without the need for installation.
This is an absolute game-changer and is very exciting for
those of us who teach maths at secondary and sixth form level. The only previous barrier to using Autograph
has been the need to pay for it. Over
the past few days it has been installed on my laptop; I suspect my half term
week will be full of Fun With Autograph!
Session – Manipulatives
Liz Henning (@oxfordedmaths) presented ways that Cuisenaire and
Numicon can be used.
She showed a lovely way to think about factorisation, with
this diagram demonstrating two ways to visualise some factors of 15.
In what ways are these two diagrams the same/different?
This can easily be extended to help explore HCF and LCM.
I often find I learn lots at conferences from informal
conversations and from other delegates.
This one was no exception. Liz
asked us to use Cuisenaire rods to work out 1+2+3+4+5+4+3+2+1.
I rearranged in this way:
Someone else on my table did this:
That’s lovely!
Several of us then tried to sort out how this method would work if the
middle rod was an even number in length.
Session – Autograph for A-level Statistics
Douglas Butler (@DouglasButler1), Janet Smith (@JanetAdeleSmith) and Leona So (@LWYSO) showed us where to find
useful data sets and other information about Autograph (http://www.tsm-resources.com/useful-files.html). It was, as always, a privilege
to work with Douglas, the creator of Autograph.
It was good to see how to draw a histogram, normal dist,
etc. I hadn’t realised before today that
the rather weird idea of histograms with unequal width bars is unusual
elsewhere in the world!
My initial thoughts are that Autograph:
- is more powerful than many other pieces of maths software
- does stats brilliantly
- is aimed at KS3 – 5
- has a steeper learning-curve than other software.
Lunch
This was an opportunity to visit the exhibitors (and the
charity tuckshop) and to catch up with colleagues from other schools. There was so much to do that I missed the
TweetUp session!
Session – ‘So you think you’ve got problems?’
Alex Bellos (@AlexBellos), author
and puzzle-ist (he writes a fortnightly puzzle column for The Guardian)
spoke very entertainingly about his forthcoming book. We had lots of great problems to work on,
there was audience participation, and I enjoyed the opportunity to work on
problems with those sitting around me.
There was history, there was geography and even the problem Alex
described as being the worst he has ever come across turned out to be
interesting to hear about!
Session – Exploding dots
Rebecca McAndrew (@MathsMcBec) showed us an introductory video about exploding dots which, at their simplest,
are a way to show place-value. We were
then able to work on using ‘exploding dots’ to carry out calculations in
different bases (we managed to add in binary and to divide in both binary and in
base 8).
The part that was completely new to me was that exploding
dots can be useful in dividing polynomials by other algebraic expressions.
I continued thinking about this session on my drive home –
and realised during the journey that we could make use of ‘negative dots’ in
numerical calculations (having been shown this as part of algebraic
division). I don’t know how
self-explanatory this diagram is…
Any session that keeps me thinking for several hours afterwards must be a good thing!
The rest of the day
There were then the closing remarks, an announcement of how
much had been raised for Macmillan during the day and a chance for more
catching up and more conversations.
It was a brilliant day of CPD, with lots of interesting
things going on and people to talk to (and, of course, the announcement about Autograph!).
I am very keen to go to the next one!
MathsConf 22 is in Manchester on 14 March 2020 (the day that
shouldn’t be Pi Day!)
MathsConf 23 is in Oxford on 27 June 2020.
Many thanks to all who led workshops and to the
organisers. Much appreciated!
