Numeracy Champion Action Research Project 2024: PROJECT REGISTRATION PAGE

NCARP 2024 PUBLICATION

NCARP 2024 HUB

A one year, spaced and comprehensive, professional learning program and action research project that will build the capacity of numeracy leaders and classroom teachers, to improve their confidence and competence within the teaching of explicit and sequential mathematics and increase the impact of their work on student mathematics and numeracy outcomes.

As we know, mathematics is an essential skill that underpins learning and outcomes in many areas. It requires explicit, systematic instruction and needs to be taught in a structured way. Ideally schools need to adopt a whole school approach that emphasises the importance of assessment, teaching and learning of mathematics through all learning areas. IST have planned a series of systematic PL sessions to be facilitated by Professor Tracey Muir from Australian Catholic University and Doctor Carol Murphy from UTAS. In 2024, we are excited to announce they will be assisted by Doctor Sharyn Livy, Senior Lecturer of early Years/Primary – Numeracy, School of Curriculum, Teaching and Inclusive Education at Monash University, Victoria and co-author of Maths Sequences for the Early Years F-2; Challenging to Reason Mathematically.

These sessions will support teachers and Mathematics Leaders to build their confidence, capacity, content and pedagogical knowledge in the mathematics domain. This professional learning program and action research project aims to build participants’ skills and awareness of current evidence based best practice and empower them to return to their context to upskill and train others in mathematics instruction. After each session, participants return to their schools with key actions and ways forward, to improve mathematics instruction, planning, teaching and assessment at their schools.

Participants will also participate in a termly ‘community of practice’ webinar to discuss their experiences, report on progress, and share ideas. They will also have the opportunity to work with IST education consultants Trudy Ward (South) and Lauren Watson (North), 1:1 as required, to support them in their journey. The project includes 4 x whole day sessions, with one session being held each Term in 2024. These sessions will involve participants learning about the big ideas and misconceptions surrounding the chosen content, experience hands on activities, and strategies to use for instruction as well as diagnostic, formative and summative assessment tools to collect data for and of impact being made. A numeracy screening tool will also be embedded in the project this year, providing teachers who are a part of the project the opportunity to conduct whole school K-6 numeracy screening for their students.

Teachers will also be given access to the AISNSW screening resources hub to provide them with everything required to administer the screening tool including a video of professional learning so they feel supported throughout the process. Assistance will also be provided as required by Trudy Ward (South) and Lauren Watson (North) from IST to ensure all teachers regardless of previous experience feel supported. The K-2 and 3-6 screeners are to be conducted three times per year for added data collection of assessment, impact, and student growth. Follow up visits to individual schools by Trudy Ward and Lauren Watson will enable the participants to develop understandings in their context as well as providing teacher support, coaching and sharing of practice. This could also involve supporting mathematics leaders to deliver bespoke PL to their colleagues within their own unique contexts and cohorts to roll out any new approaches/assessments.

The AISNSW K-2 Screening Tool has been designed to monitor students’ acquisition of skills in the sub strands of Whole Numbers and Addition and Subtraction. The 3-6 Numeracy Screening Tool monitors student progress across the strand of Number and Algebra. The results from both of these screening tools are entered into a spreadsheet which allows teachers to easily identify students who may be at risk of falling behind. The data elicited from these screening tools can also be used to plan whole class instruction and differentiated teaching for students’ according to their identified needs. It will also support teachers in discussions with parents around their child’s progression in numeracy. Educators who attend will be expected to commit to the project for the whole year, attend all face to face and Community of Practice sessions. By the end of the year, we hope that participants will be able to report on and present the impact of their project and be able to talk about the effect of this work on their school community.

Obviously, numeracy is a highly complex process, and it takes time and effort to both change and embed practice. We have therefore designed the PL sessions to address version 9 of the Australian Curriculum and embed evidence based up to date best mathematics practice for planning, teaching, assessing and reporting. The sessions will be both informative and practical, but above all we aim to support teachers to set goals and embed their new knowledge into practice, along with gain experience in collecting, sorting and representing data to inform future teaching of mathematics at all levels required for students to achieve success. The idea will be to transition participants knowledge into facilitating the implementation of the new mathematics curriculum where it relates to numeracy concepts.

HOW TO REGISTER?

To register for the Numeracy Champion Action Research Project, please complete the following two (2) step process:

STEP 1:

Select the appropriate payment link below and process your payment accordingly:

IST SCHOOL LINK

NON-IST SCHOOL LINK

STEP 2:

Click the green 'register' button at the bottom of this page and follow the prompts.

PLEASE NOTE: Enrolment is not valid unless BOTH payment and registration have been completed.