Online resources

Free resources – Multifangled

Bar code activity

An hands-on activity using barcodes.

Download the resource for free.

Online resources

Free resources – Multifangled

Rethinking Assessment: Strategies for Holistic Adult Numeracy Assessment

By Beth Marr, Sue Holme and Dave Tout

Rethinking Assessment is both a practical and theoretical resource. It discusses key assessment issues, provides a bank of models of good practice in assessment and demonstrates how holistic assessment can be undertaken within the assessment criteria of accredited frameworks. Suggested observation and recording sheets are included where appropriate and samples of student responses are discussed.

Originally published by Language Australia in 2003.

Download for free.

Online resources – Numeracy and maths

Free resources – Multifangled

Consumer Stuff Maths resource

This resource was originally produced by Consumer Affairs Victoria. It contains a series of applied learning, practical activities, investigations and lessons suitable for secondary school students, including VCE and VCAL classes. Each of the sections addresses particular consumer and financial issues that affect young people today.

Download the resource for free.

ACAL recorded webinar – Something to say, Lessons learned, lessons ahead Beth Marr on numeracy

Beth Marr is a numeracy icon and author of a range of practical books based on research. Beth shares lessons learned from when “we were living in a society and not an economy”, including important advice on approaches for when you’re given funding (“Don’t let bureaucrats tell you how to teach”).

Beth shares her knowledge about:

• Women in technology and maths
• Maths anxiety
• How to share attitudes to maths
• Changing the way maths is taught
• Research about group work and how to use it effectively
• Research about maths language
• How to provide effective PD
• How to get students to talk about maths
• Making your classroom different to what was experienced at school
• Spiralling around skills rather than working through a tick list
• Developing a sense of maths
• Estimating
• Building student confidence
• How to contextualise

Watch the interview with Beth Marr (YouTube)

ACAL recorded webinar – Something to say, Lessons learned, lessons ahead Dave Tout on numeracy

Dave Tout: Literacy + language + mathematics = numeracy

There is enough evidence that numeracy needs to stand out in its own right … research shows that low numeracy can have a more powerful effect in its own right than literacy, particularly for women. In this conversation Dave Tout, numeracy advocate and expert, discusses the implications of N being tacked on the end of LLN and now lost in the middle of LLNDE. Topics include how we enable more adults to engage with numeracy, learning from our students, opportunities for new teachers to get their training (and the frustrations!), the history of LLN, and the seldom discussed links to high school maths teaching. Dave will get you thinking about delivering numeracy, what works, and what we need to change. 

After falling into numeracy teaching and developing a passion for the area, Dave reflects that looking for different ways of doing things and team teaching were key to improving his own teaching and understanding of how students learn. He reminds us that best practice is to integrate literacy and numeracy, and that it’s a fascinating field – and for the future we need to invest in adult literacy and numeracy and invest in teachers!

Watch the interview with Dave Tout – YouTube

Watch now