by Hugh C.n. Miller | Jul 16, 2019 | Uncategorized
ORT SA senior mathematics facilitator, Julius Olubodun attended the 25th Annual National Congress of the Association for Mathematics Education of South Africa (AMESA), which was held at the Edgewood Campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pinetown from the 1st – 5th July 2019. The theme of the congress was “Developing Deep Mathematical Thinking through Mathematics Teaching”
ORT SA is an institutional member of AMESA and is actively involved in academic programmes of AMESA both provincially (called region) and nationally.
During the 2019 gathering of the congress, Mr. Olubodun conducted a 2-hour workshop for FET mathematics teachers and officials from the Department of Basic Education titled, ‘Constructing Trigonometric Reasoning’.
The feedback from participants was very encouraging. “ Trigonometric concepts become so visual through the activities and classroom practices that were demonstrated in this workshop” and “The weaker learners in my classroom have always been left behind when I teach through textbook approach, but the lesson I learnt from this session will help me to address the learning barriers of all learners in my classroom including the weak ones”.
Mr. Olubodun said he took away many lessons from the congress, including those from Professor Judit Moschkovich, mathematics educationalist at the University of California Santa Cruz whose research uses sociocultural approaches to study mathematical thinking and learning, mathematical discourse, and mathematics learners who are bilingual and/or learning English. “This will come in handy for me when helping learners in multilingual classrooms in our project,” said Olubodun. “Multiculturalism affects the learning and teaching of mathematics in South Africa.”
“Professor Zurab Janelidze of Mathematics at Stellenbosch University whose scientific work lies in the field of Category Theory with emphasis on “Reflection” as a basis of mathematical enrichment of students encouraged me to teach ‘thinking’ in my classrooms,” he said.
“Dr Vasuthavan Govender’s presentation on ‘Profiling of Mathematics Olympiad Learners’ provides direction for me to make use of profiling in order to make ORT SA’s intervention more impactful to individual learners,” he added.
“Dr Govender emphasises data collection, not only of learner’s marks, but examining in depth what each child’s skills are in certain areas and those that s/he may lack. This means drilling down to each and every learners’ capabilities and using that data for improving teaching in the classroom. It may be time consuming but if you want your learners to get their best results, individual profiling in depth is necessary,” explained Mr Olubodun.
Julius Olubodun and Professor Moschkovich
by Hugh C.n. Miller | Dec 20, 2018 | Uncategorized
Despite the political and economic instability of our landscape, ORT SA gathered momentum almost from the start of 2018 and as we journeyed through the year, ORT SA’s achievements continued to grow and our Vision of ‘Educating for Life’ and Mission of ‘Making People Employable’ becoming more and more tangible. It turned out to be an excellent year!
So, thank you to our donors, funders, suppORTers and followers. We are so grateful for your support. Your willingness to assist has played a vital role in the growth of our organization and goes beyond just pure numbers, as lives are impacted. Without your engagement and partnership we could not have helped 6 800 beneficiaries this year.
Achievements:
59 post matrics gained an average 92.5% pass rate in the Second Chance programme (rewriting of matric mathematics and science). As a result of ORT SA’s intervention, almost half of these students have just completed their 1st year at university!
600 primary and high school pupils in ORT SA’s Extra Mural Coding Clubs, up from 200 Grade 4-8’s in 2017
60 teachers completed the introduction to coding course with ORT SA
200 youth placed in a 1-year work experience positions
6 young women received bursaries to study Education through ORT SA’s affiliate, STET Foundation.
34 unemployed youth learned IT skills including the accredited Cisco IT Essentials
7 high school pupils obtained the Cisco IT Essentials certification
15 Disabled youth get a chance at learning how to run their own business
1285 people participated in an eclectic variety of talks and interesting events which took place at the ORT SA Academy in 2018. This includes an art exhibition, a ‘storytelling’ workshop, digital workshops, a work summit for youth, business training, captains of industry in the ORT SA Boardroom: Simon Sussman (Woolworths), Sylvester Chauke (entrepreneur), James Teeger ( Oppenheimer Trust),
1000 pupils celebrated Mandela Day with ORT SA and Sage
320 teachers trained in Mathematics
2408 pupils assisted in Mathematics in class by ORT SA Facilitators
450 high school pupils trained in New Venture Creation (to start and grow sustainable businesses)
323 Mentors for small businesses
47 new small businesses joined the ORT Jet training programme
TOTAL 2018: 6800
Other exciting happenings:
- A whole new look for ORT SA – a rebranding exercise in accordance with World ORT
- An historic affiliation agreement signed between the SABJE and World ORT
- Overseas visitors and overseas visits for ORT SA affiliates
- Fundraising events such as the first ever Spinnathon ™ in SA and the 45th ORT SA Golf Classic
- ORT SA archives and library organized by a volunteer librarian.
The NGO space world-wide is becoming increasingly more difficult to navigate. In South Africa, Education receives the most CSI funding which makes the competition fierce for non-profits. But with your assistance, we are up for the challenge in 2019.
Marcelle Ravid
Marketing and Communications Manager
ORT South Africa
