Competition Time

Wow, what a busy four weeks, preparing and honing problem solving skills.  My group of ten students have been shaped into a team of eight! 

We have spent the past two weeks, working on questions, discussing answers and preparing our strategy for the event:  PPA Mathex Competition 2018.

These are the ideas we have decided will form our strategy or thinking for the event!

Strategic Thinking of our teams!

Meet our two teams:

Team 2

Team 1

Fast forward the Competition...

Having just competed this evening, the two teams have done myself and the school proud.  There was tough competition amongst schools in the area.

The aim of the competition - 20 problems completed, as a team, within in the timeframe of 30 mins.  Not an easy feat with a variety of questions, challenging the knowledge and skills of the participants.

At the competition, the winning school - 20 questions in 17 minutes.  That was good going!  I has the pleasure of being the marker of this team - they were fast, keen and answered 90% of questions on the first go!!

So how did we go!  Well, Team 1 got 60 points (12 questions correct) and Team 2 made it at 30 points (6 questions correct).  I am super proud of my two teams!

The debrief after - they found it tough, exciting, nerving but I think the experience was worth it in the end!

Mathex Training 2018

Term 3 sees the training of the 2018 Mathex Teams. 

We have been spending out sessions doing the following:

• What makes a good Mathex Team
• What strategies do we employ to solve problems
• What types of questions pose extra thinking time..."Help us with these please Mrs Fox"
• Practising questions and working together as a team

So far we have learnt and practiced the following strategies:

• Write an equation
• Draw a diagram
• Guess and check

We have also learnt what is important when we first see the question:

• READ IT!
• Underline the key words and numbers