MathsConf21

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!