Mathematics Department
This term has signified a fresh start for the Mathematics department. The recent renovations to our block have brightened the learning environment, and will only continue to improve the teaching and learning strategies and atmosphere led by our staff.
Our Year 7 classes have recently been working on their mental arithmetic within the topic of Computation with Integers. During this topic, students review a variety of strategies to help with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division as well as delving into the exciting world of directed numbers such as negatives and their appearances in the contexts of temperature and money.
On Tuesday Year 7 Jade completed a 'treasure hunt' activity to practice what we have been learning in Maths in recent weeks. Working in pairs, the students needed to remember the order of operations and the rules for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing positive and negative numbers, to solve a series of questions. Each answer they found led to the next question they needed to solve, which eventually led to the 'treasure' - a small prize for the groups with the most correct answers. Well done to Austin JoJo, Dylan Phillips, Christian Kassiotes, Matthew Attard, Maher Hanna and Roy Alashkar for completing the most questions correctly!
By Mrs Marianna Morris and Mrs Campbell
Year 8 have been expanding their knowledge of algebraic techniques, creating expressions, collecting like terms and substituting to evaluate expressions. Some classes have taken this somewhat abstract concept and engaged students in manipulatives such as dice and cups to represent unknown quantities, whilst others have embraced the concept using matching activities to solidify their understanding.
Coming up for students in stage 5 (Years 9 and 10), Mount Carmel will be engaging students in two workshops run by Talk Money. Talk Money with Ecstra Foundation is a free financial education program that teaches young people money lessons for life and helps students be confident when talking about money and making informed financial decisions. Delivered by trained facilitators, the workshops are aligned to the Australian curriculum and the National Consumer and Financial Literacy Framework. We are looking forward to the workshops and, if you would like to know more, check out their website at Talk Money
Students across all stages have embodied the theme of growth mindsets, particularly when using the mini whiteboards to demonstrate critical thinking and reasoning. The use of these whiteboards within mathematics classrooms has enabled students to take chances and make valuable mistakes, allowing them to better understand concepts and engage in learning activities. Students in the Year 11 Advanced Mathematics class have even gone as far as using the main whiteboard in front of their peers as a place to elaborate ideas and collaborate with other students to problem solve.
