A couple days ago there was an article in the SMH, titled,
Bad with numbers? You might have maths anxiety
Yeah, maybe. Or maybe you just suck at maths. It’s a conundrum.
Continue reading “Maths Anxiety Is Not a Thing, But Let’s Talk About It Anyway”
Tag: arithmetic
Maths Anxiety is Not a Thing
I am, of course, wrong. Prove it. Continue reading “Maths Anxiety is Not a Thing”
New Cur 26: Algorithmic Sinking
One of the shiny new expressions of mathematics education is algorithmic thinking or, if one prefers, computational thinking. It is 10% shrewd rebranding and 90% poisonous snake oil. The new Australian Curriculum is full of it. Continue reading “New Cur 26: Algorithmic Sinking”
An Old-Fashioned Italian Butcher
New Cur 24: ATSI Elaborations and the Games People Play
Last year, after the appearance of ACARA’s appalling draft curriculum, we ran a competition: find the best Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elaboration. No one took our competition seriously. This was perhaps unsurprising, since most readers of this blog would have been sceptical already, and then our introduction to the competition hammered the ATSI cross-curriculum priority as enacted in the draft mathematics curriculum. We were serious, but no matter. There is a new mathematics curriculum, with revised ATSI elaborations, and we move on.
Continue reading “New Cur 24: ATSI Elaborations and the Games People Play”
New Cur 15: The Vastness of Space
As was our previous post, this one concerns a very small but very telling detail of the new mathematics curriculum. A minor perversion of the curriculum is the renaming of the study of geometry as “Space”. This stupidity was noted by AMSI last year, in their submission on the draft curriculum:
New Cur 14: Moving the Decimal Point, and Other Sins
The Year 6 Number stream of the new mathematics Curriculum contains a notable content descriptor:
multiply and divide decimals by multiples of powers of 10 without a calculator, applying knowledge of place value and proficiency with multiplication facts; using estimation and rounding to check the reasonableness of answers (AC9M6N06)
Yep, we’re just like Singapore. Continue reading “New Cur 14: Moving the Decimal Point, and Other Sins”
New Cur 6: Necessity is the Mother of Convention
ACARA’s draft mathematics curriculum contained the following elaboration from Year 8 Number:
using expressions such as 
, and 
to illustrate the convention that for any natural number 𝑛, 
, for example, 
(old AC9M8N02)
This has been changed for the approved curriculum:
using examples such as 
, and 
to illustrate the necessity that for any non-zero natural number 𝑛, 
(new AC9M8N02)
Give ’em another few years and ACARA just might land upon proper wording. And the proper use of commas. And brackets. And logic.
Continue reading “New Cur 6: Necessity is the Mother of Convention”
New Cur 5: Non-Reoccuring Decimals
Last year, we held a competition: What Are the Arguments FOR the Draft Mathematics Curriculum. The winner was officially no one, partly because everyone was too cynical to take the competition seriously, and partly because everyone’s cynicism was very largely justified. Still, we decided to declare John Friend the winner, for his suggestion in a different competition. John’s suggestion was an elaboration from Year 8 Number:
investigating the use of pronumerals to represent recurring decimals as their equivalent fractions, for example, let 
then 
and 
therefore 
and 9x = 7 so 
(old AC9M8N03)
This elaboration has been removed for the approved curriculum.
New Cur 4: Golden Moments
ACARA’s draft mathematics curriculum contained innumerable head-slappers, including the following content and elaboration from Year 8 Number (which we posted upon here):
recognise and investigate irrational numbers in applied contexts including certain square roots and π (old AC9M8N01)
investigate the Golden ratio as applied to art, flowers (seeds) and architecture
That has changed. In its stead, ACARA’s approved Curriculum has
Continue reading “New Cur 4: Golden Moments”