Mathsliteracy Teachers resources

Another article slamming Mathslit

Johan has uploaded his grade 10 work schedules! Thank you Johan!

Great resoruces. Maybe we can change it for South African cricket scores?

Mathematics is used in interesting, and often less than accurate, ways. Newspapers present graphs showing apparently correlated variables, but with a little thought, some of the time you will find that whilst it looks like two variables are connected, there is actually no cause and effect. Sometimes this is because there is a third factor causing the movements in the variables - for example, if it is hot and sunny, sales of sunscreen lotion increase, as do sales of air-conditioners. If you plot these sales against each other, you find a correlation. However, they are only connected because of a third variable, the summer weather. Of course, an unscrupulous media can draw connections where they don't exist for more political ends, such as blaming an increase in crime on the sales of hooded sweatshirts. And politicians have been known to confuse cause and effect, thinking that a local crime increase is due to the increased police presence, rather than the other way around.

"I've attached the grade 11 papers I set for Nov. Feel free to use them! Please let me know if you see anything glaringly horrible! The memos are in the same word file as the question paper Sarah"

Great resource for Arnot www.brombacher.co.za for mathematical literacy. During April 2008 Brombacher and Associates ran a four-day workshop for FET College lecturers on the assessment and remediation of the pre-requisite knowledge and skills assumed to be necessary for students to be able to study Mathematical Literacy. The workshop was presented by Aarnout Brombacher and Marc North. It focussed on the use of pre-tests to determine the knowledge and skills that college students have at the start of the programme and on the teaching of the necessary knowledge and skills in those cases where the students do not have these.

See discussion at http://mathsliteracy.ning.com/forum/topics/2009568:Topic:5706

New article published: Albanian students' motives for preferring certain real-life situations for learning mathematics"

Johan looked at the Mathematical literacy SAG's and did a critique of the paper based on that. Thank you so much for making the time and effort to do this. Now we all can use it as a base to take the discussion further.

Bess's 2011 grade 11 final papers

Learner booklet 

The memo is here: http://www.thutong.doe.gov.za/ResourceDownload.aspx?id=44943

"it turns out that most people who consider themselves proficient at digesting number based health information, when called upon, often end up performing quite poorly on problems requiring numeracy." (thanx Johan 4 sharing this link)

Statistics and probability play an important part in our lives and are particularly useful in helping us make wise decisions. This exercise will help the students see that there are mathematical rules that can effect even our use of the English language. GRADES/SUBJECT: Appropriate for Grades 7 though 12. Mathematics and English language. PURPOSE: This exercise re-enforces the value of statistical research and provides an interesting view of the way people write.

The memo is here:

People as well as animals are born with a sense for numbers. But is this inborn number sense related to mathematical ability? A new study suggests that it is.

New textbooks to look at. Join this textbook discussion.

Eastern Cape Trial Papers

With memos- thanx Johan

"I have found some usefull articles which could be used to make teaching of ratios and proportion more realistic to the kids. Another source which could be used is The travels of Gullivar. There is also a very interesting article about the usage of electronic media by teenagers which could be used in math lit classes."

Manfred's Gr12 June exam paper 1.