Mathematics Suggested activities for masterclasses for Victorian High-Ability Program students in the Primary mathematics course.
Guest speakers and documentaries
High ability practice leaders can use their networks and resources to arrange for an expert guest speaker to address the students. Professional teaching associations such as the Mathematical Association of Victoria, as well as universities, may be able to provide this service to schools.
See
10 Best Documentaries for Teaching Mathematics, for suggested videos. High ability practice leaders can use the ideas addressed in any of these documentaries to structure a discussion or lead into an activity. For a virtual option, a guest speaker could run an online lecture followed by a question-and-answer session using Webex.
Other masterclass activities
Code-breaking day for secret agents
This masterclass links closely with the content in the Primary mathematics course that focuses on ciphers. High ability practice leaders create a day in which students come together to break secret codes. This could include dressing up or competitions with prizes. Depending on the size of the group and the amount of time available, the day could be set up in a variety of ways.
Ideas for activity sessions:
- Students are placed in different teams and move around a room to complete different, timed code-breaking challenges.
- In pairs, students create difficult codes for each other to break.
- Students research different code users through history, for example, Julius Caesar, and create codes they may have used.
Resources for this masterclass include:
Cool computer challenge
This masterclass links closely with the content from week 6 of the Primary mathematics course. Students investigate the way in which binary coding is used by computers to send us information. High ability practice leaders create a day in which students are asked to think like a computer. This could include a computer design competition with prizes. Depending on the size of the group and the amount of time available, the day could be set up in a variety of ways.
To adapt this masterclass to the virtual space, any of the activity sessions could be run in a virtual classroom and shortened to 1.5 or 2 hours.
Ideas for group or paired activity sessions:
- Students create an emoji using binary code.
- Students use 'binary flash cards' to learn about bits and bytes.
- Students create binary bracelets using pipe cleaners and beads
- Students create a scratch game with a binary switch or remix an existing game.
Resources for this masterclass include:
Calculate this!
This masterclass links closely with the content from week 3 of the Primary mathematics course. High ability practice leaders create a day in which students must complete a range of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division challenges using methods from Ancient Egypt, or other methods that are not commonly used today.
Students can investigate the ways in which humans have completed mathematical equations throughout history as well as the origins of the scientific calculator. Depending on the size of the group and the amount of time available, the day could be set up in a variety of ways.
To adapt this masterclass to the virtual space, any of the activity sessions could be run in a virtual classroom and shortened to 1.5 or 2 hours.
Ideas for group or paired activity sessions:
- Teachers set up a competition where students must solve equations using an abacus or slide rule.
- Teachers set up a competition where students use Egyptian addition, subtraction, multiplication and division methods to solve equations.
- Students work on problems involving Egyptian fractions.
- Students create a timeline of how common mathematical processes have been developed over time and across different civilisations.
Resources for this masterclass include:
Mathematicians of the African Diaspora (SW Williams, The State University of New York)
Classroom resources (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics)
Egyptian Multiplication (A Bogomolny,
Cut-the-knot)
Abacus (R Pierce,
Maths is Fun).
Acknowledgement, resources and references
The activities, resources and ideas for masterclasses were adapted and developed by the Victorian High-Ability Program teaching staff at
Virtual School Victoria .
Additional sample activities and suggestions for masterclasses for Primary mathematics may be obtained by contacting Virtual School Victoria at
vhap-support@vsv.vic.edu.au.
10 Best Documentaries for Teaching Mathematics (2017) Association of American Educators.
'Binary Code for Kids' (2022) Coding activities for kids,
Teach Your Kids Code.
'Bits of Binary',
Dabbling in Data.
Bogomolny, A (2018) 'Egyptian Multiplication', Interactive Mathematics Miscellany and Puzzles,
Cut the Knot.
Classroom resources , National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
'Code Breaking for Young Secret Agents' (2017)
Maths for All, Maths Week, Ireland.
Codes and Ciphers Teaching Resources Website, Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching in collaboration with Bletchley Park National Codes Centre.
Exploring Binar ,
FUSE Digital Technologies, Department of Education, Victoria.
'Free activities for classroom or home', Classic Computer Science Unplugged,
Computer Science without a computer, University of Canterbury Computer Science Education, New Zealand.
NRICH [https://www.nrich.maths.org] (2023), Faculty of Mathematics, University of Cambridge, England.
Pierce, R (2021) 'Abacus',
Maths is Fun.
Secret Code Breaker: Online Cryptanalyst's Handbook.
'The Secret World of Codes and Code Breaking' (2004, revised 2011),
NRICH, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Cambridge.
Williams, SW (2008)
Mathematicians of the African Diaspora, The Mathematics Department, The State University of New York at Buffalo.
youcubed® (nd), Stanford Graduate School of Education, California, USA