Algorithmic at School

Course Outline

The school user can select one or up to four students to participate in this course.

Students do not need external assessments to participate in Born to Soar courses. We ask that you read the course descriptions carefully to determine that the required skill level is appropriate for your students.

The ‘Algorithmic’ course endeavours to challenge students to think of mathematics as a creative discipline. Participants will be challenged to write mathematical equations in order to describe their thinking to find winning solutions for an ancient strategy game. The facilitator will encourage students to think mathematically, rather than ‘do mathematics’; the focus is on the process to the solution rather than the accuracy of the solution itself. An appreciation of inventors of mathematical thinking will be explored as students are encouraged to invent their own algorithms. It will be necessary at times for the students to complete tasks away from the computer and the virtual classroom.

Student pre-requisites skills required to join this classroom:

• mathematically able above their year level

This course has been undertaken successfully by highly able students in Years 3, 4 and 5.

Students will need to upload their completed work to the cloud at least one day prior to the following classroom allocated time.

Teachers please note:

• an adult supervisor should be allocated to virtual classroom times
• students’ work will need to be uploaded to their personal cloud folder

Australian Curriculum Mathematics Links

The specific mathematics skills that are targeted this course are:

Year 7 / Statistics and Probability / Data representation and interpretation

• Construct and compare a range of data displays including stem-and-leaf plots and dot plots

Year 7 / Statistics and Probability / Chance

• Assign probabilities to the outcomes of events and determine probabilities for events

Year 7 / Number and Algebra / Patterns and algebra

• Create algebraic expressions and evaluate them by substituting a given value for each variable

Year 8 / Number and Algebra / Linear and non-linear relationships

• Plot linear relationships on the Cartesian plane with and without the use of digital technologies

7.2 ACARA

It is assumed that teachers will use a variety of mathematical task types including those that give students choice of approach and those for which there is an optimal strategy; those for which there are various possible solutions and those which have a single correct answer; those that prompt the development and use of mathematical models; those that incorporate ideas across content strands; and those that require thinking in more than one discipline.