Professional Development Programs

To discuss any of the options below contact:

Doug Williams
Tel: +61 3 9726 8316
Fax: +61 3 9727 4644
Email: doug@blackdouglas.com.au

Our services are available outside Australia.

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Taste & See

Use the ideas, activities and principles in the Free Tour. Look for any influence they have on your children's learning. Try to establish the environment described in Calculating Changes in Brief. You probably already have calculators and if you don't have Poly Plug you will be able to adapt.

Mini-PD

Arrange a short professional development session (~2 hours) so your staff can experience the materials and ideas. This will provide the basis for staff discussion about future involvement.

Alternatively, purchase site membership and/or Working Mathematically with Infants then arrange this workshop to stimulate staff involvement.

For inspiration, read this short story from Boroondara Park Primary School. The staff decided to implement Working Mathematically with Infants and found that working with the children in this new way was an in-house professional development experience in itself.

One Day & Six Day Programs

Programs that support schools to gain full benefit from their Calculating Changes membership are part of the Maths on the Move workshop library. This is accessed through the links below. Please review the possibilities and discuss your needs.
  • Engineering 'aha' Moments in Number
    Designed as a one day, student free session for the whole staff. Hands-on, stimulating, exciting with time for planning classroom trials. Poly Plug purchase is essential for this course and Calculating Changes membership is desirable. Can be used by a single school or a cluster of schools. More information in the link.

  • Working Mathematically with Infants
    A one day course for teachers of Years K - 2. The course uses Threaded Activities and Investigations to enhance young children's number sense and enthusiasm for learning mathematics far beyond what teachers normally expect. Poly Plug purchase is essential for this course, preferably as a Working Mathematically with Infants kit and Calculating Changes membership is desirable. Can be used by a single school or a cluster of schools. More information in the link.

  • Engineering 'aha' Moments K-8
    This 6 day course is designed for clusters of schools and systems. The program develops key teachers (at least two from each school is best) who become in-house leaders of curriculum shift and teacher change. This program can also be used very successfully by a cluster of two or three neighbouring schools with a common objective. It links the work of Calculating Changes, Mathematics Task Centre & Maths300 through the framework of all students learning to work like a mathematician in best practice classrooms, but the overall thrust of the course is enhancing children's number sense, concepts and skills beyond what is normally expected for the age. Purchase of Poly Plug, Tasks and Calculating Changes membership is essential for this course. More information in the link.

    Advantages of this approach are:

    • a focussed key team to keep the project 'bubbling' in the school
    • professional development occuring as close as possible to the teachers' work environment
    • professional development independent of the availability of an external consultant and therefore more easily integrated with other demands on the school's time
    • reduced professional development costs per school
    • key teachers able to take their leadership expertise with them when they move schools

    Nic Dale's Story: describes the affect this program had on one teacher and his school

Discussion Lessons

Programs above can be supported and enhanced by Discussion Lesson days.

In a Discussion Lesson our leader:

  • teaches the class for one session while at least 2 teachers observe the children learning
  • debriefs with the teachers immediately after the session to draw out and expand on the learning in the session and how it occurred
  • challenges the teachers to run the same lesson with another group and organise a reporting back session with each other
It is usually possible to organise 3 Discussion Lessons per day, assuming each lesson is 50 minutes with the children, followed by 50 minutes with observing teachers.

Calculating Changes ... is a division of ... Mathematics Centre