MathsClass

More MANSW 2012 thoughts

Thursday, 20 September 2012 | 1 Comment

In no particular order, some more thoughts after attending the MANSW 2012 Conference.

Many teachers are seeing the same challenges in their schools, all across NSW. For example, student engagement, teacher commitment and accountability, changing academic ability, frustration with available resources, effective use of technology, reasonable access to technology.

There is a real and evident difference/disparity between the haves and the “have much less”.

I would like to see content and resources in the control of teachers, connectable, flexible, open. (part of my reasoning for having MathsLinks, MathsFaculty, MathsKit etc.) Reality is that content and resources are going to be increasingly locked behind publishers gates with annual subscriptions and no ownership by the teacher. Unlike the days of buying a black line master book for $50 and using it for the rest of your career, teaching resources are moving to the iTunes model of licensing content for a time. I think teachers need to be mindful of this and even pushing back on this model.

Still on resources, nearly all content is being pitched at the average/above average student.

Particularly in Sydney, choice of schools is having an obvious impact of the make-up of the local public high school. In my mind detrimentally.

Networking with colleagues is still only being taken up by a few.

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