We in the Otago region warmly invite you and your colleagues to take a mathematical journey our way this coming July.

The programme we are planning will refresh and challenge as well as reinforce and consolidate your teaching and learning ideas in Mathematics. We plan to have a wide range of exhibitors displaying their latest and most relevant and interesting resources.

The venue is Otago Boys’ High School, stunningly grand and set up to overlook the Otago Harbour. Close to the Dunedin city centre and local culinary outlets it is perfectly placed for your enjoyment of Southern hospitality.

Our major social function will be a Masquerade Ball held up at Larnach Castle, a place of grandeur and historic significance for Dunedin City. Opportunities to create your own special mask will be made throughout the conference.

My team and I look forward to seeing you here July 19 – 22, Tuesday to Friday 2011 for NZAMT12.

Pack those thermals and make the journey…it will be well worth your while.

Raewyn Devlin

Organising Chairperson

IMPORTANT DATES:

Call for Papers: December 1, 2010

Submission closes: April 19, 2011

Notification of assessment: on or before May 19, 2011

SPEAKERS

Dr Dave Hewitt, School of Education, University of Birmingham

Dave Hewitt taught for 11 years in schools in the UK including five years as Head of Mathematics. For the past 20 years he has worked at the University of Birmingham, UK, training secondary mathematics teachers and working with experienced teachers on in-service, Masters and Doctoral courses. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education. Dave has been a Governor of a local primary school, a member of the Executive Council of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics (ATM), committee member of the Association of Mathematics Education Teachers (AMET), on the government advisory group for algebra and geometry, Secretary of the British Society for Research into Mathematics (BSRLM), and the regional contact for UK and Ireland for the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME)

.Dave’s research interests centre around the notion of the economy of personal time and effort in the teaching and learning of mathematics. Recently that has centred around the teaching and learning of algebra in particular. Dave has developed several computer programs including Developing Number (which featured in the early training of teachers for the UK National Numeracy Strategy) and Grid Algebra. He has given invited talks on a variety of topics in Germany, Canada and South Africa as well as across the UK, and has presented research papers at many international conferences across the world.

Derek Holton

After nearly 24 years in the job, Derek retired from his position as Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Otago in early 2009. During that time he published about 90 papers on mathematics and mathematics education; about 20 books ranging from school texts to popular books on mathematics to tertiary texts; about 20 chapters in books, largely involving research into aspects of mathematical education; and about 90 articles for teachers and students on mathematics.

He came to New Zealand with an interest in teaching mathematics, but this developed considerably while he was here. One thing that sparked this development was his involvement in the International Mathematical Olympiad, an annual mathematics competition for secondary students. With others, such as Ivan Reilly and Alan Parris, he participated in the training of New Zealand IMO teams and was New Zealand’s IMO Team Leader for several years between 1988 and the turn of the century. This work motivated him to work with school students and to begin to think more deeply about what were the fundamental aspects of mathematics that students should be introduced to. The answer seemed to lie in Problem Solving because (i) he had seen in class how motivating it appeared to be (in the same way as solving murder mysteries is); (ii) it is in some sense one of the two pillars of mathematics (the other being the large store of mathematical algorithms and results that have accumulated over the years); and (iii) it was evidently of great use both in mathematics, outside it, and as a link between the mathematical world and the real world.

Through this period, Derek also made contributions at a national level. He was possibly the only person on the original advisory group to the new mathematics curriculum of 1990 that remained after the Minister of Education reconsidered its membership. He was still involved in a similar group in the latest mathematics curriculum. In between he chaired the Numeracy Projects Reference Committee and initiated, with Gill Thomas and Joe Morrison, the web site www.nzmaths.co.nz.

On the international stage he participated in three ICMI studies, one of which, The Teaching and Learning of Mathematics at Undergraduate Level, he chaired. He also took a leading role in some of the ICME conferences, for example, chairing Study Group 1 at the ICME conference in Mexico in 2008.

In 2009 he retired and has returned to Melbourne, his wife’s birthplace and where his daughter and family live. Here he is still working with students on a regular basis and has become involved in a number of other things such as writing items for the next PISA and finishing off the odd book or two on problem solving. But this has not meant that his New Zealand connections have been severed. With two grandchildren in Christchurch there are regular trips across the Tasman some of these resulting in visits to Dunedin. Hopefully these will continue for a long time.

Helen McGillivray, Queensland University of Technology

Helen MacGillivray is a Professor in Mathematical Sciences at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), where she is also Director of the QUT Maths Access Centre. Helen’s university teaching and curriculum design experience of more than 35 years extends across all areas of statistical sciences and their applications, across all levels of subjects, all class sizes and most disciplines, particularly engineering and science. She has received many grants and awards for teaching and was one of the first Australian Learning and Teaching Council Senior Fellows. She is President of the International Association for Statistics Education, was scientific coordinator for the 8th International Conference on Teaching Statistics, and is chair of the Advisory Board of the International Statistical Literacy Project.

Helen is an Honorary Life Member and past-President of the Statistical Society of Australia and of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Council, and is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and the International Statistical Institute. She has published widely, including textbooks, book chapters and more than 60 refereed or invited papers, and delivered more than 100 local, national or international presentations, seminars and workshops on learning, teaching and assessment in statistics. She has chaired reviews of university departments and centres, and worked on secondment and as a consultant in the UK. Helen has played key roles in mathematics and statistics school education with the Queensland Studies Authority, the Australian national curriculum and the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute’s TIMES (The Improving Mathematics Education in Schools) project. She has also developed and coordinated enrichment programs in mathematics and is Australian representative on the editorial board of the journal ‘Teaching Statistics’.

Kaye Stacey, University of Melbourne

Kaye Stacey is Foundation Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Melbourne and leader of Science and Mathematics Education.  She works as a researcher and teacher educator, training teachers for both primary and secondary schools and supervising graduate research.  She has written many practically-oriented books and articles for mathematics teachers as well as producing a large set of research articles.  Professor Stacey’s research interests centre around mathematical thinking and the mathematics curriculum, particularly the challenges which are faced in adapting to the new technological environment.  Her research work is renowned for its high engagement with schools. Her doctoral thesis from the University of Oxford, is in number theory. Kaye is the chair of the international Mathematics Expert Group for PISA 2012, a member of the College of Experts of the Australian Research Council and was awarded a Centenary Medal from the Australian government for outstanding services to mathematics education.

Pip Arnold, Consultant

Pip started her teaching career at Western Heights High School, Rotorua, and then moved to Wellington, where she taught at Naenae College and then as Head of Mathematics at Sacred Heart Girls College, Lower Hutt. While in Wellington Pip was involved in writing resources to support the implementation of MINZC, in particular at levels 7 and 8. In 1998 Pip completed her Masters degree in Mathematics Education, for which she developed a resource using language activities in algebra for level 5.

Since living in Auckland Pip has worked: at Penrose High School, as a retirement education presenter, as HOD Mathematics at Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, as a Mathematics Facilitator for Team Solutions and since January 2010, as a Principal Consultant for Cognition Education Limited.

During her teaching career, Pip’s three main passions have been supporting her colleagues, promoting participation of girls in mathematic through EQUALS and teaching and learning in statistics. EQUALS is an organisation set up primarily to encourage the participation of girls and other minority groups in mathematics through to university. The EQUALS philosophy involves not only student-centred teaching but also a commitment to using practical activities and genuine mathematical contexts. Pip worked with teachers to introduce them to the EQUALS way of thinking about learning and to empower them to create original resources by running workshops and publishing an EQUALS newsletter. She and her colleagues have presented EQUALS workshops at many NZAMT conferences.

Pip’s passion for statistics has grown as her teaching career has progressed. Work with Maxine Pfannkuch around the statistical investigation cycle sparked her growing fascination and determination to bring statistical learning to life. Recent years have seen Pip involved in the development of resources for the NZ Maths website. She has been on the Auckland Mathematical Association committee and has been the chief organiser of the association’s very successful Saturday professional development programme. She was on the organising committee for NZAMT-10 in Auckland in 2007, and in 2008-2009, the Bevan Werry speaker presenting around the country to both primary and secondary audiences on statistics, including the PPDAC cycle.

Pip has committed herself providing resources and support for curriculum change for NZ mathematics and statistics teachers, particularly in the statistics strand. In 2009 and 2010 Pip was involved in a Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) research project around informal inferential reasoning at levels 5-6. She was contracted to provide tier two support material for the statistics strand at levels 6-8, worked as a resource person for CensusAtSchools, and is currently researching posing statistical investigative questions at level 5 as part of her PhD in statistics education.