Assignment 1 Grace Edwards 2166414

EDUC4729K: Senior Years Maths Specialisation

Grace Edwards (2166414)
Assignment 1: MASA year 12 conference report (20%)

The sessions which were attended at the MASA conference on Thursday 28th February 2019 included:
 What I learned from the exam (Stage 2 Maths Methods) - Jim Potter
 The non – SAT SAT How can we judge performance differently? - Jo Kellaway
 Specialist Maths Investigation - Deb Woodward-Knight
 Reflections and Hotspots - Vanessa Gorman

The four sessions attended, provided the opportunity for SACE mathematics teachers to engage with
other schools around the state, share ideas, and reflect on and be challenged about their teaching.

‘What I learned from the exam’ provided teachers with non-bias feedback on the 2018 Maths Methods
exam with relation to what was taught and common mistakes made. Jim Potter also provided insight
into the types of exam questions which have been replicated and adapted over the past 10 years,
which helps teachers to informatively prepare students for the exam. In addition to this, Jim Potter
provided some helpful ideas of summary tables which teachers could use or adapt to show their
students how to organise ideas for exam settings. This session was valuable as it outlined areas where
teachers may need a more explicit teaching style, or more consciously check for student
understanding in areas that were lacking in the 2018 exam. It also provides teachers with a variety of
past exam questions from SA and other states to help students prepare for the exam.

I found ‘The non – SAT SAT How can we judge performance differently?’ to be the most valuable session.
This session gave examples of students who struggle to perform in test settings due to anxiety or a
plethora of other reasons. As a response to these students, Jo Kellaway challenged teachers
understanding of what a Skills and Applications Task (SAT) is and why tests are the only SAT’s used in
majority SACE subjects. This was valuable for teachers as it gave them examples of what a non-SAT
SAT may look like (with examples given) and gain feedback on how the implementation of non-SAT
SAT’s at ASMS worked for students and teachers, in accordance with SACE. This session promoted
discussion for what first steps may look like in the implementation of non-SAT SAT’s in a school, and
some effective ways to do this. In addition to this, the teachers who attended this session gained a
MASA contact at ASMS (Jo Kellaway) who has experience and could potentially support them in this
process.

The ‘Specialist Maths Investigation’ allowed for the sharing of students work and how investigations
can be developed and used by students to create meaningful learning experiences. Deb Woodward-
Knight went through investigations used within specialist maths, common mistakes made and their
limitations. The main challenge explored was how to make the investigations open so that students
could relate the maths to real-world situations. An open-ended investigation such as the parametric
equations investigation, allows students to choose subjects which interest them and apply to real-
world contexts so that their learning is meaningful. Deb Woodward-Knight gave some very inspiring
examples of student work, which showed teachers how the assignment could be taken in many
directions, and promote thinking which leads to more meaningful and beneficial learning.

The final session ‘Reflections and hotspots’ touched on weaknesses throughout the maths cohort such
as algebraic skills, graphing skills and students struggling to make connections between different parts

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Assignment 1 Grace Edwards 2166414

of a question. These are very valuable points for teachers to take on board and share with their
mathematical colleagues at school in order to try and rectify these weaknesses in earlier years and
more consciously work on these things in SACE. In addition to this, the session gave very valuable
resources to help develop student understanding. Vanessa Gorman reiterated that students should
be challenged and find it hard to work through some questions, so that strong discussions can be
fostered and problem solving skills can be used. All the materials given, are beneficial for teachers who
attended the session as they are quality resources which can be hard and time consuming to develop
or find, but easily insertable within a lesson.

I see benefit to the sessions run at the MASA conference, however, in my current position as a pre-
service teacher it would be difficult to implement some of the ideas and changes into my learning plan
for teaching stage 1 general maths this year. However, some immediate things which I can use in my
learning plan are the resources suggested such as OneNote to help gather and sort information from
various places, Desmos for some interesting activities which can be used within the classroom to
develop student understanding, and some of the example questions and resources they gave us so
that I can practice and learn different ways in approaching questions. I believe that all of these sessions
have me thinking about some important aspects of teaching maths in the future, and have encouraged
me to attend more conferences such as this one.

Conferences such as this MASA conference are important for regular attendance throughout the
teaching of SACE mathematics, as they allow for teachers to engage with one another, build a network
of teachers and discuss how they can improve student experiences in engaging with the curriculum. It
allows teachers to gather quality resources and ideas for developing critical thinking and
understanding amongst the cohort. It provides an environment where maths teachers can share ideas
and experiences from school, increase accountability amongst teachers, most definitely challenge and
encourage each other to try new things in order to suit students’ needs and develop a range of their
skills. Conferences also help teachers look at SACE with a different lense and open up discussion on
how they can develop the knowledge and skills they need in order to address students’ learning
challenges.