News › 2012

On December 1, the Wellington Mathematical Association (WMA) and the Department of Statistics ran a special event atTWellington Girls’ College for Year 13 statistics teachers. Find out more about the statistics road tour here.

Some photos from the event are below:

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If you went along, we’d love to hear your feedback!

The New Zealand Association of Mathematics Teachers (NZAMT) have set a date for the 2013 biennial conference,

Absolutely Positively Mathematics and Statistics, Wellington Girls’ College,

1st – 4th October 2013.

Have a look at their new conference website for information about presenters, registration and accomodation.  Registrations open on the 1st of February 2013.

All teachers of mathematics and statistics, and all workers in mathematics and statistics, are warmly invited to join for four days of being absolutely positive about our learning area.

 

On November 28, the Otago Mathematical Association (OMA) and the Department of Statistics ran a special event at The University of Otago for Year 13 statistics teachers. Find out more about the statistics road tour here.

Some photos from the event are below:

Dunedin Teachers' Day 2012

Dunedin Teachers' Day 2012

If you went along, we’d love to hear your feedback!

Today, the Canterbury Mathematical Association (CMA) and the Department of Statistics ran a special event at The University of Canterbury for Year 13 statistics teachers. Find out more about the statistics road tour here.

Some photos from the event are below:

Continue reading »

The Auckland Mathematical Association (AMA) and the Department of Statistics ran a special event at The University of Auckland’s Tamaki campus for 350 Year 13 statistics teachers. Statistics Teachers’ Day, on November 22, introduced the teachers to a range of online and interactive tools and resources to support the new statistics curriculum, which starts in the 2013 school year. The workshop will be repeated in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, with local maths associations running each event. Find out more about the statistics road tour here.

See photos and read teachers’ feedback from the day:

Jason Ellwood of Otumoetai College talks bootstrapping at Statistics Teachers’ Day.
Photo: Stephen Barker, www.barkerphotography.co.nz. ©The University of Auckland.

Sharleen Forbes of Victoria University outlines statistics education past, present and future in the plenary session of Statistics Teachers’ Day.
Photo: Stephen Barker, www.barkerphotography.co.nz. ©The University of Auckland.

Simon Webster,
ACG New Zealand International College:

“What stood out for me was the plenary talk by Sharleen Forbes [Adjunct Professor of Official Statistics, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington], which gave us pointers to where things are heading [in statistics]. That appeals to the futurist in me.”

Continue reading »

At least 10,104 students in American classrooms have been exposed to statistical problem-solving in a project introduced two years ago in this country to educate school-aged kids on statistical literacy. The American Statistical Association’s (ASA) United States Census at School program, which originated in the United Kingdom in 2000, is a free, web-based project for students in grades four through 12.

Continue reading »

New CensusAtSchool website

CensusAtSchool NZ is undergoing a major facelift/restructure.

The new website has been redesigned to put teacher needs in the new curricular and assessment environment at the heart of what the site delivers. We aim to be a current, comprehensive, resource bank for the Teaching of Statistics in NZ.

The new website is temporarily situated at https://new.censusatschool.org.nz and coexists with the old website http://www.censusastchool.org.nz until the end of the school year. Over the summer break, once the current census is closed, everything is planned to be transferred over to the new website. Once that’s completed, we’ll just have the new website at www.censusatschool.org.nz.

CensusAtSchool began as website in which students could participate in an online survey and contribute to an international database. Real data can then be analysed and used by schools. Teachers are able to receive their class data and there are a variety of classroom resources available on CensusAtSchool to direct their teaching of statistics.

Statistics has changed significantly in New Zealand over the last few years. As statistical practice has become computer based, there is much less need to be able to calculate statistics manually. Rather, students are being encouraged to consider the context, reason and origin of the data. The focus of assessment has also changed, with NCEA Level 2 being reorganised this year and new Achievement Standards for NCEA Level 3 drafted for next year. We found that teachers all over New Zealand use CensusAtSchool at times so that it is a good place to host and index Statistics resources and professional development.

CensusAtSchool’s website has been completely reorganised, updated and expanded to be a comprehensive and practical resource for teachers.

Everything is now grouped by the curriculum level and achievement standards. For each curriculum level and achievement standard relating to the teaching of statistics, teachers will find: details of the standard, detailed FAQ, vetted activities, resources and links to further their knowledge.

Everything is also now easily printable for teachers to have at their fingertips, along with the ability for them to provide feedback by rating and commenting on resources.

There is now a place to ask a statistics question called FAQ. Teachers can email a question to censusatschoolnz@gmail.com which will be answered carefully by one of a number of ‘experts’ and posted online.

Links to a large number of websites such as NZQA, TKI, Stats NZ, and Stats Chat, means teachers can always find relevant current material, competitions, road shows and articles.

We encourage teachers to contribute resources to the CensusAtSchool website so if you come across something good that we have missed or have any feedback on the new site please email us: censusatschoolnz@gmail.com.

We hope you enjoy using the new website,

Regards

The CensusAtSchool team.

Auckland, November 1, 2012: More than 500 teachers are expected to flock to a national road tour this month that aims to support their teaching of a new statistics curriculum to Year 13 students.

The road tour starts in Auckland on November 22 and travels to Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington, offering presentations and real-life resources to help teachers make the most of the curriculum from the start of the 2013 school year. More than 15,000 New Zealand students studied Year 13 statistics in 2011, the last year for which figures are available. Continue reading »

Registrations are now open for the Statistics Teachers’ Day, Thursday 22nd November and will close on Wednesday 7 November (or earlier if full).

For more information about the day and to register, go to: Statistics Teachers’ Day 2012.

When you register you will need to choose one workshop for each of the 4 sessions and a further 2 back-up choices. These may be from any session but should be different to your other 4 choices. Registration for workshops will be on a first-in, first–served basis. In the event of one (or more) of your choices being full we will first try and accommodate you by offering you the same 4 workshops in a different mix of sessions. If we cannot do that we will use one (or both) of your back-up choices. We strongly encourage schools with more than one person attending to converse before making workshop choices and choose different workshops, to ensure that there is space for people from other schools.

7,150 secondary school students from 216 schools completed CensusAtSchool Ireland survey between August 2011 and August 2012.

The questionnaire covered topics ranging from what students have for breakfast, the types of sports they participate in, where they keep their mobile phones and how much they knew about the Olympics.

Read some of the findings »