[Maths-Education] Applications invited to work with teachers for 10 days in South Africa

Tue Apr 17 18:33:42 BST 2007

Applications invited to work with teachers for 10 days in South Africa

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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? 

I am currently looking for a primary specialist to join the team 3 to 
14 July 2007 on an expenses only basis with travel costs, 
accommodation and food provided. There will be further opportunities 
for both primary and secondary specialists in the future.

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 website of The African Institute for
Mathematical Sciences Schools Enrichment Centre (AIMSSEC)
http://www.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 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.

We have run the course six times now for 347 teachers. It is truly 
humbling that teachers are so enthusiastic about the course and so 
grateful for the opportunity to take it. 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 currently looking for one person to work with the teachers of 
Grades 4 to 6 (roughly equivalent to Key Stage 2) as I have one 
volunteer already for that age group. 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 on the team we have Diana Townsend, Margaret Macfarlane and 
myself from the UK, John Suffolk from Brunei and Merilyn Buchanan 
from California.

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 
11 but not yet to grades 12. Probability and Statistics has recently 
been 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 2008 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 build in time to work with computers and 
calculators and on the use of ICT in learning and teaching 
mathematics. We always find that there are very few computers in the 
schools the teachers came from so we always provide alternative ways 
to use the same teaching idea without ICT. In this way we want to 
introduce them to using ICT in school but make sure that they 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 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 means that each of the six lecturers are 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, some of the time, supporting
their partner in the small group sessions. This is a lot to ask. How
does it all seem to you?

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.

We always enjoy the experience of teaching the course.

Very best wishes

Toni

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Toni Beardon
University of Cambridge 
Centre for Mathematical Sciences
Wilberforce Road   Cambridge CB3 0WA
Tel. +44 (0)1223 560582    
Fax +44 (0)870 751 8332   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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