Two Sunshine College teachers are gaining worldwide recognition for transforming the way they teach maths.
The technique forged by Jodie Parsons and Yvonne Reilly has proved so popular that this year the pair will travel to Scotland to present at an IMA international conference on ‘barriers and enablers to learning maths’.
They have also been invited to share their experiences at a TEDx education event in Bendigo this month.
Ms Parsons, the school’s head of curriculum, said the pair first investigated best practices in maths before coming up with their own curriculum for year 7 to 10 students, one that better prepares them for VCE.
Ms Reilly, the college’s head of maths, and Ms Parsons have co-authored several papers and presented at conferences around Australia and overseas.
“We were experiencing poor to average results [in maths] and wanted to make a real difference,” Ms Parsons said.
“We worked hard but felt our hard work wasn’t being as effective as it could have been, so Yvonne and I combined our classrooms and set about supporting one another.
“One of the most radical things we did was to ditch the textbook. Instead, each and every one of our differentiated lessons is designed by a team of highly qualified maths specialist teachers.
“This ensures that maths at Sunshine College accelerates all students, truly challenging the very best mathematicians.”
Ms Parsons said that, on average, students who had been part of the program from years 7 to 9 had shown faster improvement rates during NAPLAN testing than the average student in the state.
