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The first year of the MOTIVATE programme, 1999-2000by Helen Joyce On this page:Summary
SummaryFive pairs of videoconferences were held in 1999-2000 under the MOTIVATE programme. The first three pairs of conferences linked a school centre in Brent and a mathematician in Cambridge. The last two conferences were three-way, linking Brent, Cambridge, and another school centre, the first in Cape Town, and the second in Slough. On average, there were five participating schools at each school centre, on each occasion. Sixteen different schools participated during the year. Approximately 25 students participated directly in each two-way conference; approximately 50 in each three-way conference. Most participants worked on their problem sets with one or two class groups, while some worked instead in maths clubs outside school hours. Approximately 875 students participated in the MOTIVATE programme, directly or indirectly, during the year. Just over 200 students received certificates for their involvement. The model used for the MOTIVATE conferences was as follows. At the first conference of a pair, a mathematician located at the videoconferencing suite in Cambridge University talked briefly about their mathematical life and what maths means to them. At the three-way conferences, the students also introduced themselves and their schools to each other. The mathematician then presented the mathematical material of the conference and set tasks for the students. For the last two pairs of conferences, twinned schools were assigned the same tasks as each other. At the second conference, the students presented the work they had done on theproblem sets. Each MOTIVATE speaker supplied us with an article on their topic for the website http://nrich.maths.org/MOTIVATE, as well as the problem sets. A couple of the speakers also provided us with follow-up articles, and some students gave us their work to put online. Some streamed video-clips from the conferences are available on our website. We plan six pairs of conferences for 2000-2001, all three-way between Cambridge and two school centres, at each of which will be representatives from five schools. Therefore there is the possibility to use up to twelve different school centres. We will be using the twinning model in every pair of conferences. We intend to facilitate school-to-school linkups via MOTIVATE. This sort of conferencing can be a way to try out videoconferencing without any serious commitment of resources, and as such is quite a rich possibility for roll-out of MOTIVATE. We also envisage that many people all over the world will soon be able to watch MOTIVATE lectures streamed over the internet - they will not be able to interact live, but can collaborate using email and our webboard. Already half-hour videos of the MOTIVATE lectures can be watched on our website. In this way, MOTIVATE can be rolled out to a practically unlimited audience.
Speakers, topics, and school centres for 1999-2000The speakers, topics, and school centres for 1999-2000 were
The school centre in Brent was located at John Kelly Girls Technology College, Crest Road, London NW2 7SN. The other participating schools at this centre were
(Not all schools were involved in every conference, as some schools have no sixth-form, and others are sixth-form only.) The school centre in Cape Town was located at the Telkom Exploratorium. Telkom (the national telecommunications company of South Africa) kindly covered all costs incurred due to the involvement of the Cape Town schools. The participating schools at this centre were
The school centre in Slough was located in Arbour Vale School, Stoke Road, Slough SL2 5AY. The other participating schools at this centre were
For the first four pairs of conferences of the year we used hired equipment in order to test various solutions. Before the final pair of conferences of the year we bought our own equipment, which we used for those conferences. See Appendix A for details.
The way the MOTIVATE programme worked in 1999-2000Each of the year's five MOTIVATE conferences was in fact a pair of conferences - a Launch conference and a Talkback conference. The first three pairs of conferences of 1999-2000 were all two-way conferences; the last two were three-way, linking a mathematician at the videoconferencing suite in Cambridge, and two school centres. At each school centre there were five representatives from each of the participating schools. For the three-way conferences some schools were twinned with a school from the other school centre. The Launch conferenceAt the Launch conference a mathematician located at the videoconferencing suite in Cambridge University talked briefly about their mathematical life and what maths means to them. At the three-way conferences, the students also introduced themselves and their schools to each other. When the ice had been broken in this way, the mathematician talked on an area of maths students would not normally meet in school and set tasks for the students. Time was allowed for the students to ask questions. Each participating school received an unedited video of this conference a few days later, for review by the participants and their classmates. Between the Launch and Talkback conferencesThe central element of the MOTIVATE programme is the work the students do themselves between the conferences. Mathematics is a subject with a long gestation time - very few of us are quick enough of understanding to follow an exposition of a new topic and immediately come up with insightful comments and questions. We need to allow our thoughts to mature, to try things ourselves, and to rephrase, in our own words, the information we've been given. A common occurrence during the past year has been that students have not been able to ask many questions of the speakers at the Launch conference - the topic was too new and too unfamiliar, and possibly nerves have made the students silent. However, a month later, after talking amongst themselves and working at their own pace, the students had plenty to say! Details of the tasks and further information to assist the work were made available on the MOTIVATE website (http://nrich.maths.org/MOTIVATE) designed for printing off and using away from the computer; working online was optional. This also enabled classmates and others not directly involved in MOTIVATE to work on the assignments. These web-pages are still available and will remain so, which means that as time goes on MOTIVATE will provide an increasingly valuable archive of material suitable for use in the classroom. This year, as we have been piloting the programme, the Schools Liaison Officer has visited the schools by arrangement, to help the students and teachers work on the material, and to provide feedback on the programme to the MOTIVATE team. For the last two pairs of conferences, twinned schools were assigned the same tasks as each other, and were encouraged to discuss their progress via email or our web-board. Participants (and others) could also have their questions answered by the AskNRICH team. The Talkback conferenceAll the schools presented their findings at the Talkback videoconference. Each twinned school presented one half of what they have worked on. For the first three conferences, each school had approximately 10 minutes to present what they had done; for the second two conferences, each school had approximately five minutes. Some students used PowerPoint, or handwritten or typed slides with a document camera. The students had great freedom to organise their presentation as they saw fit, and if they followed a particular path in their work, rather than sticking rigidly to their brief, that was fine. When every school had was finished presenting, the mathematician summed up, drawing together the work all the schools had done and giving some idea of how to take the topic further. Some students submitted the work they did for their MOTIVATE presentations for inclusion on the MOTIVATE website. This work was published with acknowledgements of names of contributors and schools. The students involved in MOTIVATE this year had the opportunity to meet a respected research mathematician and to get an idea of what doing maths entails. They also carried out what were in effect original pieces of research, on topics that are quite current. Until you start doing independent work, maths is seen as something where your teacher knows the answers and you sit on your own, repeating the methods you've been taught until you get the answer that you're meant to get. The open-endedness, the sense of collaboration, and the freedom to organize their material in whatever way seems best to them, to search out material and assistance using their own initiative, certainly made the experience nearer to the everyday life of a mathematician than anything else the students had ever done. They rightly recognised the quality of their work, and were proud of their achievements. A point that came up again and again was how much the students, particularly the girls, liked working in a group. Maths is often seen as a solitary subject, and one in which people compete to improve their rankings on some very precise scale. This goes hand-in-hand with the belief that mathematics is mechanical, not creative - it is much harder to attach precise rankings to creative achievements than to mechanical ones. Of course, in an academic environment, much work is collaborative - even more in other subjects than in mathematics - and, certainly in mathematics, undertaken for the pure love of the subject. It is the done thing to appreciate and admire the achievements of others. In this way too, then, the students involved in MOTIVATE experienced something close to the environment of an academic research institute. They very much enjoyed working in a group, towards a longer-term goal, in a collaborative and less competitive way. They admired other people's achievements and achieved in a less hierarchical structure.
The online side of MOTIVATEEach MOTIVATE speaker supplied us with an article on their topic for our website, as well as the problem sets - with attention to the need to keep the problems open-ended, and also (often difficult for university lecturers) at the right level for a younger audience. During the month between the two videoconferences, we tried to find some interesting websites with related material, to link to from our MOTIVATE site. Sometimes this was easy, because we already had a PASS/Plus article on the topic (http://pass.maths.org), or a related problem in a past issue of the NRICH magazine (http://nrich.maths.org). Where appropriate, we provided LOGO programs and Java applets, to help the students on their way, and deepen the material for other users of the site. A couple of the speakers also provided us with follow-up articles, going into their topic in more depth, or providing feedback on the work done by the students. A recent innovation has been to provide streamed video-clips from the conferences online - and this is something we hope to be developing further.
The future for MOTIVATEWe plan six pairs of conferences for 2000-2001, all three-way between Cambridge and two school centres, at each of which will be representatives from five schools. Therefore there is the possibility to use up to twelve different school centres. We will again use Cape Town, Brent and Slough, and will definitely be collaborating with centres in Belfast, Glasgow, Newcastle and Madras, and hopefully with centres in Birmingham and Bristol. (None of the costs incurred in linking up with centres outside the UK will come from the NESTA budget.) We will be using the twinning model in every pair of conferences, and hope that as time goes by, schools will feel that the interaction with their twin is a rich part of the programme. The main thrust of the MOTIVATE programme will continue to be these three-way conferences, with speakers from the academic community, and students presenting work on the conference topic at the TALKBACK conference. However, we also hope to facilitate point-to-point work via MOTIVATE - possibly supporting schools in maintaining contact with their twins, via videoconference if the schools in question have the facilities, or else via email and our web-board. Another possibility would be to support the schools in meeting again at their regional centres to have a two-way videoconference between themselves without a third link to Cambridge, possibly with application-sharing. Follow-up work could be done on the conference tasks, or year groups or students not involved in the original conference could meet via videoconference and collaborate. For this sort of activity we will be offering support and expertise, however the initiative will need to come from the regional centres, and arrangements to be made by them. We are currently looking into point-to-point work between schools with videoconferencing facilities. This sort of conferencing has the potential to be much less expensive and technologically challenging than larger videoconferences. It is possible that such links between schools could be quite a rich possibility for roll-out of MOTIVATE. With the constant improvements to bandwidth and online videostreaming, real-time videos running over the web are becoming more feasible by the month. We envisage that many people all over the world will soon be able to watch MOTIVATE lectures streamed over the internet - they will not be able to interact live, but can collaborate using email and our webboard. Already half-hour videos of the MOTIVATE lectures can be watched on our website using RealPlayer, which is freeware. In this way, MOTIVATE can be rolled out to a practically unlimited audience - as well as the primary participants at the school centres, anyone with an internet connection will be able to follow the action and do some mathematics. Something we are keeping in mind is that MOTIVATE is a pilot project, intended to show the way for other disciplines and other mathematics projects. There is no reason why similar projects cannot be run in other subject areas, learning from our experience. Especially at the moment, when videoconferencing equipment is a major investment for a school, it makes sense to use it across many departments. Again because it is such a major investment, not too many schools have it, and by being involved in MOTIVATE schools can meet other schools who also have the equipment and collaborate with them across many departments. We are setting up a bulletin board where schools with videoconferencing equipment can post contact information and details about what subjects they would like to videoconference on, so that schools can contact each other directly, without the need for any central intervention. This bulletin board will also be available from NESTA's website, which will increase the number of viewers, as well as the spread of subject areas. contact | accessibility © 2002 Millennium Mathematics Project, University of Cambridge |
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