[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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