Professional Development Resources
Numeracy
Connecting voices in adult mathematics and numeracy:
practitioners, researchers and learners
Proceedings of the Adults Learning Mathematics (ALM) 12th Annual International Conference jointly with the Australian Council for Adult Literacy (ACAL) and in cooperation with the Australasian Bridging Mathematics Network(BMN)
Melbourne, 3rd – 7th July, 2005
Editors: Marj Horne & Beth Marr
Online resources
Bar code activity
An hands-on activity using barcodes.
Download the resource for free.
Online resources
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.
Online resources – Numeracy and maths
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.
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)
Watch nowACAL 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
Online resources – Numeracy in Practice
Oggi Consulting 2013, Numeracy in Practice, DIICCSRTE, Canberra.
Numeracy in Practice is a professional development resource. It builds vocational education and training (VET) workforce capacity building to better meet the numeracy skills needs of adults in the workplace. The resource supports the competencies that VET practitioners need to:
- Assess and strengthen their own workplace numeracy proficiency skills
- Deliver workplace numeracy skills training
- Use the Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF) in relation to the numeracy core skill.
Online resources – Numeracy by Measure
Oggi Consulting 2014, Numeracy By Measure. Building the Workplace Measurement Skills of VET Practitioners, Department of Industry, Canberra.
Numeracy by Measure is a professional development resource. It supports Vocational Education and Training (VET) practitioners to build their awareness of workplace measurement skills to better meet the skills needs of adults in the workplace. The resource supports the competencies that VET practitioners need to:
- Assess and strengthen their own workplace measurement skills
- Support workplace measurement skills training
- Use the Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF) in relation to measurement skills in the workplace context
- Use the FSK Foundation Skills Training Package in relation to workplace measurement skills.
Online video series – WA “Collaborative Numeracy’
The Collaborative Numeracy video series is a project of the WA Department of Training and Workforce Development. The Collaborative Numeracy series is based on strategies explored by a group of teachers engaged in activity-based workshops.
Dismantling Maths Anxiety – YouTube
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Cooperative Logic: structured problem solving – YouTube
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Interaction and Discussion: how to get students talking numeracy – YouTube
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Sense of Volume 1 – YouTube
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Sense of Volume 2: exploring metric units of volume – YouTube
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Making sense of fractions – YouTube
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Making Sense of Subtraction – YouTube
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Guess, Estimate and Measure – YouTube
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