M1Maths

History of M1Maths

In Term 2 of 2005, while teaching in Australia, I was asked to mark Year 7 Maths papers left by the Year 7 Maths teacher when he resigned. They were set under the outcomes approach current at the time, and were Level 4 Number and Algebra. Of the approximately 90 students, all but five failed the Number test and all but one failed the Algebra test.

I also started teaching three Year 7 classes one period a week. My job was to teach the Term 2 program. But the students were expected to keep working on the Term 1 content so that they could resit and pass the Number and Algebra tests. The trouble was that they didn’t have a textbook or anything else that would tell them what they needed to be able to do or how to do it, or provide any practice.

To get around this problem, I wrote some materials for them. The materials were based on resources I had developed previously, but in a different format with modifications and additions.

Many of the students found these materials useful, so I extended them to cover all the strands at Level 4 so that students would have the same facility if they needed to retry the Terms 2, 3 or 4 tests.

With the permission of the acting head of maths, I changed the assessment method to one more in line with an outcomes approach where students could show competence on each outcome independently of the others. Each outcome was assessed using a short 5-10 minute outcome test. Students had to get all the questions right, but they could attempt the test as many times as they liked (different versions were available). When they had succeeded with all the outcomes at a level, they could sit a level test covering all outcomes at that level to prove they were ready to go on to the next level. The level test encouraged them to maintain their knowledge. They received credit for each outcome test they passed and for the level test.

The assessment approach proved to be very motivating for students. As well as opportunities in class time to sit outcome tests, we held a tutorial after school every Friday and allowed students who attended to sit any outcome test they wished as well as to get help with the maths. These tutorials were initially held in a classroom, but we soon had so many students attending that we had to extend to more than one classroom. If nothing else, those students were doing an hour a week of maths that they wouldn't be doing otherwise.

Topics were still taught in class time, but the existence of the learning materials allowed some students to go ahead of what was being taught and to pass outcome tests on topics that hadn't as yet been taught to the class. Some students went well ahead. And, of course, students who didn't pass an outcome test on the first attempt could continue to work on the outcome and were encouraged and motivated to do so.

Many students were completing Level 4 towards the end of 2005, so I developed resource materials and tests for Level 5 also. Also, I discussed the approach with the acting head of maths and she was happy for me to continue it with Years 7 and 8 in 2006.

At the beginning of 2006 I ran off Level books of the materials I had written - Level 4 books for all students in Years 7 and 8 and a number of Level 5 books for those who were ready for them. All teachers in Years 7 and 8 used the new program. Each week I held a before-school meeting, alternately with the Year 7 and Year 8 teachers to discuss issues with the program and to make sure everyone was using it the same way.

In 2007, the program and materials continued into Year 9, new materials being developed as we went. However, at the end of that year, a new dean of middle school with different views on maths education decreed that the following year we should revert to a traditional program in which all students up to the second semester of Year 10 would be required to study the same material and sit the same tests at the same time irrespective of prior knowledge, ability or aspirations.

The maths teachers felt that the maths department should be allowed to make the decisions re maths teaching, especially as the existing program was more in line with the outcomes-approach syllabus then current than the new one would be. But we were over-ruled.

Between 2008 and 2013, I continued to use worksheets, written notes etc. from the materials I had developed, as well modifying them and adding to them. I also used materials I had developed earlier for Years 11 and 12 and modified and added to these.

I took leave in 2014 and resigned. I felt that the materials I had might be of use to other students and teachers, and decided to try to develop a complete and coherent set of learning materials for Maths from Year 7 to Year 12 and to publish them on the Internet.

I secured permission to use materials over which the school and the education department would have held some copyright and produced the site M1Maths. The site has expanded considerably since 2014.

Background image: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/beach-background-sea-ocean-3892386/ (cropped) (Creative Commons licence)