[Maths-Education]
Invitation to apply to work with teachers for 10 days in South
Africa
Toni Beardon
lab11 at cam.ac.uk
Mon Mar 21 20:25:52 GMT 2005
Would you be interested in joining a team to teach a professional
development course in Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, South Africa,
for teachers from historically disadvantaged rural and township
schools, from 26 June to 5 July this year, on an expenses only basis?
Travel costs, accommodation and food are provided.
The AIMSSEC course is a 10 day intensive residential course for 50
teachers and advisory teachers from all over South African in their
school holidays, taught by six unpaid visiting lecturers in residence
with the teachers, and followed by 3 months distance learning when
the teachers write a reflective report on how they are putting into
practice what they have learnt on the course.
Please let me know if you are interested. If you would like to apply
to join the team for this course, or future AIMSSEC courses, then
please send a curriculum vitae and give the names and contact details
of two referees.
You can find out more from the webiste of The African Institute for
Mathematical Sciences Schools Enrichment Centre (AIMSSEC)
http://aims.ac.za/aimssec , you'll find more information below and
I'll be very happy to tell you more.
The Bantu Education Act made it illegal to teach black children
mathematics beyond simple arithmetic and, in addition, the teachers
were not able to learn much mathematics in their training. As a
consequence there is today a vicious cycle of educational
disadvantage affecting the children in school now. There are
thousands of experienced teachers in SA who do not know the
mathematics that the new curriculum requires them to teach in their
schools. They are desperate to learn and we have been inundated with
applications from teachers to take the AIMSSEC course. It was truly
humbling that teachers were so enthusiastic about the course last
year and so grateful for the opportunity to take this course. In the
recent TIMMS study South Africa scored very poorly in mathematics and
science, below the other African countries in the study, an
indication of the legacy of apartheid.
I am looking for two people to work with the teachers of Grades 4 to
6 (roughly equivalent to Key Stage 2) but there will also be openings
to work with secondary teachers. The course is for 50 teacher
educators and teachers who work with any classes from grades 4 to 12.
They will all have full bursaries so it will cost them nothing. So
far we have Lyndon Baker and myself, a South African called Judy
Paterson and a colleague from Cambridge called Margaret Macfarlane on
the team.
The course philosophy and objective is to help teachers to become
keen and confident learners so that they leave the course with
confidence that they can learn independently the mathematics that
they need to teach, using askAIMS when they need any help. They’ll
take away a CD from the course and lots of printed notes and
worksheets.
I’ll provide all the lecturers with details of the SA school maths
curriculum and links to NRICH problems and interactivities that fit
the various topics on the curriculum. I expect lecturers will draw on
material they have used elsewhere as maths is maths anywhere in the
world.
There is an emphasis now in SA on what they call ‘Outcomes Based
Education’ which is a departure from entrenched ‘tell them then test
them’ methods to more participative enquiry based learning.
Investigations and course work are being introduced so the experience
for teachers is similar to ours in England twenty or so years ago.
This approach has already been introduced up to and including grade 9
but not yet to grades 10 to 12. Probability and Statistics is about
to be introduced into the curriculum and is new to all teachers even
the most highly qualified.
The public and official measure of educational success in South
Africa is Matric grades (Grade 12, school leaving exam). There will
be a new examination system in 2006 which will sweep away the
separation of Standard Grade Mathematics at Matric from Higher Grade.
They are introducing a new course called Mathematical Literacy and
making mathematics compulsory up to grade 12 despite the teacher
shortage.
In the AIMSSEC course we’ll build in time to work with computers and
calculators and on the use of ICT in learning and teaching
mathematics. We found last year that there were very few computers in
the schools the teachers came from so we always provided alternative
ways to use the same teaching idea without ICT. In this way we want
to introduce them to using ICT in school but to take away lots of
ideas for teaching when they can’t have access to computers with
their class.
The plan is for sessions of 1h 45 min, allowing two sessions with a
30 minute break in each block of 4 hours, with 6 full days of 4
sessions and 3 half days (Saturday and Sunday and the final day).
Each day will start with a session for everyone together and the
other sessions will be split into 3 small groups. There will be
special events and informal sessions in the evenings for everyone
together. The small group sessions will often follow up topics
introduced in the big group session and develop teaching ideas on
that topic for the specific age group. This is an intensive
programme, by design, because when teachers are giving up their
school holiday and being away from their families it seems right to
fill the time. In addition we want to be able to meet 'contact hour'
requirements for course accreditation.
This would mean each of the six lecturers being responsible for
leading two or three of the whole group morning or evening sessions
and eleven of the small group sessions in the 10 days, and also
attending the large group sessions and, most of the time, supporting
their partner in the small group sessions. This is a lot to ask. How
does it all seem to you?
We may run the course again in Durban from 7 July to 16 July but the
funding is not certain for that. If we do then I shall be looking for
someone for that course too. Again Lyndon, Margaret Macfarlane and I
will be on the team with Lynne McClure and we are looking for two
others and this time it could be at any of the three levels.
So far AIMSSEC has run professional development courses for teachers;
a series of video-conference lessons linking schools in SA, India,
Pakistan, Singapore and the UK; set up school twinning; run a weekly
maths/science club in a township primary school and set up an online
answering service to answer maths queries. I am setting up the
AIMSSEC programme in South Africa and seeking funding to employ SA
staff to run the project and to extend these activities. Having
started NRICH and MOTIVATE, and now just working part time for the
MMP, (see http://mmp.maths.org) I am using the MMP resources in South
Africa and adapting them to make them more useful there.
If you are interesteeed in extending your stay in South Africa to
have a holiday there you may like to know, for others who might join
you, that KLM are running a special Africa offer at £440 per person
return to Cape Town. This flight involves a touchdown at Amsterdam so
we offer the lecturers the choice of a non-stop flight.
We all enjoyed the experience of teaching the course last year.
Very best wishes
Toni
------------------------------------
Toni Beardon
University of Cambridge
Centre for Mathematical Sciences
Wilberforce Road Cambridge CB3 0WA
Tel. +44 (0)1223 764242 +44 (0)1223 560582
Fax +44 (0)1223 765900 Cell 07714 357042
http://mmp.maths.org
African Institute for Mathematical Sciences
Schools Enrichment Centre
6 Melrose Road Muizenberg 7945 South Africa
Tel. +27 (0)21 787 9326 Fax +27 (0)21 787 9321
Cell 0725 727 364
http://aims.ac.za/aimssec
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