Details
Date: 6 April 2016
Time: 3:00 pm
Presentors: Ingrid Mostert and Dakalo Ramufhi (AIMSSEC)
Participants: 7 Mathematics and/or Mathematical Literacy teachers
Notes
The idea for this workshop arose from a discussion held with Mr Mathiso, Manzomthombo’s headmaster, during a school visit to show our European partners some South African schools. Mr Mathiso enquired as to how the school would benefit from the partners’ visit and Ingrid suggested that FaSMEd South Africa could present a workshop to the school’s mathematics department about how to use technology to support teaching.
During initial meetings with Memory we planned to show teachers how to use an interactive white board when teaching mathematics or science. Before the workshop we found out that the school did not yet have any interactive white boards (the one that they used to have had been disconnected as part of a renovation project) and so the plan was adjusted to focus using GeoGebra. Because most teachers don’t have a data projector in their class and because timetabling makes it difficult for teachers to bring their learners to the computer lab, we decided to focus simply on how to use GeoGebra when setting tests or exams as we felt that this would be something they could implement immediately and that had the potential to make a concrete difference.
The workshop was originally supposed to run from 2:30 till 3:45 but due to the school day ending late and technical issues such as logins needing to be created we only started at 3:00 which meant we had less time than expected. Ingrid began by introducing herself and Dakalo and explaining the nature of FaSMEd’s involvement with Memory and that it had seemed appropriate that FaSMEd run a workshop with the whole mathematics department.
As only two of the participants (including Memory) had used GeoGebra before we started from the very beginning. Participants were introduced to the different components of GeoGebra – the graphics view, the algebra and the input bar. Because we were aiming to show them how to use GeoGebra to set up exam papers, we quickly moved to use the input bar to plot graphs and after doing simple graphs we spent a considerable amount of time showing them the details about how to plot a trigonometric graph in degrees in a certain interval (see Figure 1).
We also looked briefly at sliders and, for the mathematical literacy teachers, we demonstrated how to created pictures of 3D shapes including measurements (see Figure 2).
The workshop came to an end. Memory expressed thanks to FaSMEd on behalf of the mathematics department for the time and effort taken to present the workshop. After the workshop the HOD enquired whether it would be possible to have a longer, follow up workshop. Ingrid said that she would discuss the possibility with Memory and Marie.
