Here is a link for the Mathematics Facilitator (Secondary) 2014 survey.

The URL to the survey is: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CHNSYDX

The replies that we receive will help craft and focus on the demands that Middle leaders and teachers are experiencing and require support in next year.

Can you please aim to complete the survey by the end of this term (Last day 26th September).

The 2013 survey was very useful in crafting the Mathematics Facilitator (Secondary) PLD for this year, e.g. the Literacy/Mathematics workshops would not have happened if there had not been the demand shown from the survey.

Jake Wills from Westlake Boys High School has created a Youtube channel for those of you getting started with NZGrapher with some tutorial videos on it. You can access this here: https://www.youtube.com/user/mathsnz

Recent changes include:

• Added in informal confidence intervals for dot plots (this if for the Year 12 internal)
• Changed the way the labels for this button appear as well to make it more clear what each one does.

The following changes have also been made in an attempt to get students to write about what they see rather than what is calculated as a first step:

• Scatter plots no longer automatically add in the trend line, this must be added in by clicking the ‘Regression Line’ button.
• Dot plots no longer automatically show the summary statistics or box and whiskers, this must be added in by clicking the ‘Summaries’ or ‘Box Plots’ buttons.

MathsNZ and NZGrapher are free for you to use. If you want Jake to create a folder for you so you can upload your own datasets for all your students to access easily without having to download them and re-upload them, contact Jake at MathsNZ.

New Zealand teachers if you have not yet used Tinker plots here is your chance! Used in conjunction with Ruth Kaniuk’s resources this will enhance the way you teach probability concepts. Use the author advanced search function on C@S to find all of Ruth’s resources.

Today we are releasing Version 2.2 of TinkerPlots.  This is a special, free version, which will expire in a year  — August 31, 2015.

To start the downloading process

Go to the TinkerPlots home page and click on the Download TinkerPlots link in the right hand panel. You’ll fill out a form. Shortly after submitting it, you’ll get an email with a link for downloading.

Help others find the TinkerPlots Download page

If you have a website, blog, or use a social media site, please help us get the word out so others can find the new TinkerPlots Download page. You could mention that you are using TinkerPlots 2.2 and link to www.srri.umass.edu/tinkerplots.

Why is this an expiring version?

As we explained in this correspondence, until January of 2014, TinkerPlots was published and sold by Key Curriculum, a division of McGraw Hill Education. Their decision to cease publication caught us off guard, and we have yet to come up with an alternative publishing plan. We created this special expiring version to meet the needs of users until we can get a new publishing plan in place.

What will happen after version 2.2 expires?

By August 2015, we will either have a new publisher lined up, or we will create another free version.  What is holding us up right now is our negotiations with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who currently owns TinkerPlots.  Once they have decided about their future involvement with TinkerPlots, we can complete our discussions with various publishing partners.

If I have versions 2.0 or 2.1 should I delete them?

No, you should keep them. You already paid for these, and they are not substantively different from version 2.2. If and when a new version of TinkerPlots is ready for sale, you may not want to pay for it.  So keep your early version that you’ve already paid for.
Cliff and Craig

Michelle Dalrymple of Cashmere High School and Royal Society teacher fellow, has edited and put into a user friendly format 2 large data sets from Statistics New Zealand and one from C@S.

These are now available in the data viewer on C@S and iNZight to sample from.

Birth SURF 2006

Data summary

• 10,000 observations (synthesized newborn children)
• 29 variables – 20 categorical and nine numeric variables

NZ Income Survey SURF 2011

Data summary

• 29447 observations (synthesized people)
• Eight variables – five categorical, 1 grouped numeric (age bands) and two numeric variables

NOTE: These are large data sets suitable for exploratory use with Achievement Standards
91035 (1.10), 91036 (1.11), 91264 (2.9), 91581 (3.9) and 91582 (3.10)

Census at School Data Sets (UK, NZ, OZ, CA)

Comparison for these 4 countries is now possible.

The statistics forum at NZAMT13 (Wellington, October 2013) enabled a large number  (about 40) of NZ’s most concerned and committed teachers of the statistics in Mathematics and Statistics to state their concerns. We hope that this document summarises their concerns, and is useful in guiding decisions about resource provision of all kinds.

The timing is notable: the NZ mathematics education community is approaching the end of  year one for the new curriculum-aligned level 3 achievement standards. Teachers had recently planned for this and delivered on it. The issues are fresh and ongoing.

The participants formed a group who could speak with authority: as well as the 40 leading teachers, the group included 6 members of the NZ Statistics Association’s education committee, and the conference’s 2 visiting statistical plenary speakers.  The forum was called by members of the education committee, chaired by Nicola Ward-Petty, and recorded by Marion Steel. Marion drafted this document, and Mike Camden edited it.

Marion Steel, Mike Camden (m.camden@clear.net.nz), for the NZ Statistical Association Education Committee,  June 2014.

NZAMT13 forum statistics education resources

“BULLYING is now the number-one issue troubling school kids across Australia.

New analysis of data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Census at Schools survey shows a dramatic rise in both the level of concern Aussie kids have about bullying and the number of hours children are spending in front of a computer screen.

Experts warn this is no coincidence, with smartphones, tablets and social media sites, giving kids fewer opportunities to go home and escape playground bullies.

In 2006, when Australian schoolchildren were spending an average of just three hours a week on a computer, their primary concern was tackling pollution in the country’s waterways.

But with average weekly computer use soaring fourfold to 13 hours in 2013, primarily driven by the popularity of social media sites, kids across every state and territory now nominate bullying as the key issue affecting their daily lives.”

Read more »

We hope you had a refreshing, relaxing summer holiday. 2014 will be another busy year supporting teachers at CensusAtSchool.

Best wishes for a great start to the school year!

New resources

The Auckland Mathematics Association and the Department of Statistics hosted the annual Statistics Teachers Day at the end of 2013.

Teaching resources, videos and links are available here.

The quality of presentations and work on the new standards trialed in classrooms across the North Island, was superb. CensusAtSchool would like to thank all presenters who shared their time and work to make the event a success.

Thank you!

Thank you very much for feedback to our survey – the findings were unanimous that CensusAtSchool is a much needed resource for teaching Statistics and therefore funding looks set to continue this year!

Senior Survey

Your feedback asked for a “senior” survey which has a focus on issues of interest to years 11-13 students.

This is currently being discussed, so if you have any further ideas for questions or questionnaire design please email us.