The Queensland Government’s Smart State commitment is becoming a reality in the classroom for every student and every teacher under the Education and Training Reforms for the Future (ETRF) package. The first major achievements of the ETRF are taking place through the ICTs for Learning strategy. This is a three-year transition strategy to support teachers and schools in creating the conditions where Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are integrated as everyday tools for learning and delivering curriculum.
A key area for this second year of the department’s delivery of ICTs for Learning is the ICT Learning and Development Strategy. This framework provides a broad range of professional learning pathways and resources to support all teachers in developing the necessary ICT curriculum integration skills and capabilities to effectively engage with and use ICTs as a tool for their own teaching practices and for students’ learning.
One of the identified activities of the ICT Learning and Development Strategy is to provide new training opportunities for teachers engaged in middle years mathematics (grades 4 to 9), specifically to provide training in spreadsheets through the use of common software applications.
Education Queensland wishes to engage a suitable organisation to develop a spreadsheet training package tailored for the needs of teachers of middle school mathematics, and deliver the training state-wide via face-to-face learning, and/or self-paced CD Rom, with supporting printed literature.
PROJECT OUTCOMES
Upon successful completion of the spreadsheet training, teachers should be able to:
plan for the collection of data, design and use data record templates to gather and organise observations or responses;
select data displays that best represent the collected data type and use appropriate measures of location when commenting on data displays; and
apply this knowledge in teaching and learning when integrating ICTs in mathematics for middle schooling.