Siobhan:

I'd like to acknowledge that this episode of the Teach NSW Podcast was recorded on the homelands of the Darug people. I'd like to pay respect to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today.

Opening Credits:

Welcome to the Teach NSW Podcast, a podcast by teachers for teachers.

Siobhan:

Welcome back to another episode of the Teach NSW Podcast. You're joined again by your hosts. I'm Siobhan and this is Shannon.

Shannon:

Hello.

Siobhan:

Today we are so excited to speak with Professor Catherine Attard. Welcome, Catherine, to the couch.

Catherine:

Thank you.

Siobhan:

Catherine is a distinguished educator and researcher in the field of mathematics education at Western Sydney University. Catherine has significantly transformed the teaching and learning of primary mathematics through her innovative approaches and practical strategies. Her research primarily focuses on student engagement with mathematics and the pedagogical practices that enhance it. Catherine is actively involved in exploring contemporary teaching practices, particularly through the integration of digital technologies. She's also the current president of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers, where she continues to influence and inspire the mathematics education community. So you're a little bit busy, aren't you, Catherine?

Catherine:

Just a little bit.

Shannon:

Just a tad. A little bit on.

Siobhan:

So we're so excited to have Catherine here on the couch today for the Teach NSW Podcast to talk all things mathematics, and share her love for mathematics and the profession as a whole. So, welcome.

Catherine:

Thank you very much.

Shannon:

Thanks for making time for us. We like to jump into a bit of an icebreaker just to warm you up for what's to come, or the magic of the podcast episode, that is. What are you reading or viewing at the moment?

Catherine:

I'm watching 'The Resident'.

Shannon:

Ooh.

Catherine:

I know.

Siobhan:

Any good?

Catherine:

Yes.

Siobhan:

Great.

Catherine:

I've only just found it. And there are 5 seasons and I've just finished season one and, yes, it is very good if you like a medical drama.

Siobhan:

I love medical drama.

Shannon:

The main character, I was a big 'Gilmore Girls' fan, and it's Logan from 'Gilmore Girls'.

Catherine:

It is.

Shannon:

I don't know his actual name.

Catherine:

Neither do I.

Shannon:

He's Logan to me, from many, many years of watching the 'Gilmore Girls'.

Catherine:

It's a really good show.

Shannon:

Yeah, I have heard that actually. Might have to tune in. I'm in the, I'm looking, I’m scoping out a new series at the moment.

Siobhan:

And you're speaking to two huge 'Grey's Anatomy' fans over here, so.

Shannon:

Absolutely.

Catherine:

I think you'll love it.

Siobhan:

Love a medical drama. That's a good recommendation. I'll take that.

Shannon:

Absolutely. The next one, if you could go to dinner with any influential person, dead or alive, who would it be? And they can be fictional too.

Catherine:

That's a really hard question. I don't know. I mean, look, if I wanted to just be my honest self, it would be George Clooney.

Shannon and Siobhan:

Nice.

Catherine:

And I have no shame in saying that.

Siobhan:

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Shannon:

Don't worry, I went to Lake Como and I was on the ferry and they said to us, they were like, 'George's house is just over here.' I was like, 'Get me to the window.'

Catherine:

‘Is he home?’

Shannon:

Yeah.

Catherine:

Yes, and look, not only because of his looks, but I think he's a genuinely good guy and he's done some good things. So there would be lots of benefits to having dinner with George.

Shannon:

Yeah.

Siobhan:

Definitely.

Shannon:

Okay.

Siobhan:

Definitely.

Shannon:

And the last one we have for you today, do you have a hobby or special interest going at the moment? Or if you don't, would you like to start one?

Catherine:

I do have a hobby that I am obsessed with. I sew. I make most of my wardrobe and I learnt how to design my own clothes.

Shannon:

Wow.

Catherine:

So, it's very mathematical.

Siobhan:

I was just about to say that.

Catherine:

Very mathematical.

Siobhan:

Pattern making and.

Catherine:

Because I love clothes, I love maths, I love making stuff. And so I have a very,

Shannon:

Put it all together.

Catherine:

Yes, yeah, I love it. Love it.

Shannon:

Oh, amazing. Are you self taught, like?

Catherine:

Initially, but I have done some courses on pattern design.

Shannon:

Mm, cool.

Catherine:

So, because I was always frustrated that I couldn't buy patterns for clothes that I was desiring. So I learned how to do that myself.

Shannon:

Oh, that's really cool.

Catherine:

Very satisfying.

Siobhan:

What an incredible skill. What do you have going at the moment? What's in the works?

Catherine:

I think I'm in between projects at the moment, but my current obsession is just getting pants right.

Siobhan:

Ooh, yeah.

Catherine:

I love pants. And so I have a really good prototype at the moment. I've made a successful pair of pants out of my own pattern and then I can just change it up from there, which is really good.

Shannon:

I always, well, actually, my mum always said, 'You really need to learn how to sew, Shannon,' because every pair of pants I buy is always too long for me.

Catherine:

Yeah.

Shannon:

So I'm constantly at the tailors now because mum no longer wants to take my pants up.

Catherine:

Yeah, and see, I don't do that. I don't fix things.

Shannon:

Yeah.

Catherine:

I don't sew buttons on. I don't put hems up. I just make things.

Siobhan:

You create from scratch.

Catherine:

I do, I do. But if someone says, 'Can you do this? Can you make curtains?’ or whatever, it's just like, 'No.'

Siobhan:

‘No.’

Catherine:

'Sorry.'

Shannon:

You're creating things that bring you joy.

Siobhan:

That's right.

Shannon:

And I respect that.

Siobhan:

That's right. We love it. Well, shall we dive in and talk a little bit about your journey? I'd be interested to know, first and foremost, why you chose teaching and then where your passion for mathematics education stemmed from.

Catherine:

Really good question because I came into teaching as a mature age student. I'd had 3 children and was scratching my head thinking, 'I'm going to go insane if I don't do something with my head,' you know? And so I kind of stumbled into teaching and found that it was something that I was really good at. I just loved it at university. I was actually doing really well, where I didn't really have that confidence in my own academic skills to start with. And it was, I went to UWS, which is now Western Sydney University, and the mathematics lecturers and tutors there really kind of highlighted how beautiful mathematics is. And I just, I was always good at it, but I never loved it. And I fell in love with it, and then I specialised in it and I just have never turned back. And people picked up on that and supported me along the way. So I ended up doing my undergraduate degree, getting into teaching, starting teaching, then doing a master's, and then being encouraged to do a PhD and landed at the university, and have been there 17 years next week. So, you know, it's been a journey, but just mathematics is just so creative and colourful and, you know, it's not dry like many people think it is. And I've really found that my career has allowed me to influence many, many teachers, which, in turn, hopefully has influenced many, many students, and I just keep working at that. So, I don't like the idea of being an academic who just does research and that's where it ends. I've very intentionally conducted research that I'm interested in, that I know can influence what happens in classrooms and I have very intentionally spent most of my career working with pre-service teachers, but even more so, in-service teachers to make sure that they're getting the cutting-edge research, and they're getting that, I guess, that information about what makes ‘good teaching’ in mathematics.

Siobhan:

Mm.

Shannon:

Yeah, fantastic. So as a professor at the Western Sydney University, you immersed yourself in the world of teaching all things mathematics, but particularly you're in the primary setting.

Catherine:

That's right, yep.

Shannon:

So, I'd like to know a little bit more about your teaching philosophy and how you share that with the students you teach.

Catherine:

Yeah. So my philosophy is really around making learning engaging, not just for the learner, but for the teacher. I think that's incredibly important.

Siobhan:

That's really important.

Catherine:

So I'm very big on engagement. And my philosophy, I feel kind of runs through what I do and the way I interact. And I always think if I can't be engaging when I interact with people, whether it's my peers, teachers, students, whatever, then I'm in the wrong business, because I can't be telling people how to engage students. So I think mathematics has to be relevant. And I'm not saying it's always real-life applications because sometimes it's so abstract, it's very hard to authentically link it to real life. So the way that we can make it relevant is pointing out to learners that, okay, the mathematics I'm learning today links to what I've learned before and is going to link to something I'm going to learn in the future, which will be useful for me for the following reasons. So, my philosophy is making children not just fall in love with it, but value the mathematics that they're learning. And I want teachers to value the influence they have on students because even, you know, as early as Year 1, teachers can influence how students perceive mathematics and they can influence whether students decide to opt in or opt out. And they don't always consciously do that, right? But if a student opts out of mathematics, that locks them out of a lot. It locks them out of school mathematics, you know, when they get to secondary and they have to get onto a pathway. But it also locks them out of the future, locks them out of everyday numeracy, where they have to make decisions that have a huge impact on their family finances, for example. So it's not just work, it's about life as well.

Siobhan:

Mm.

Shannon:

Yeah, no, that's a really good point. And I think for your students, what really resonated with me was that making connections along the continuum. Because my students would always say to me, 'Well, when am I going to use this?' And I said, 'How do you know how much washing powder to put in the washing machine when you're washing your clothes? What if it's a half load? How do you know it's a half load? What are we using to describe that?'

Catherine:

Absolutely.

Shannon:

'Oh, I guess it's a fraction.' I'm like, 'Yeah, bam. We've just used so much mathematics in just a daily little chore that we've done.’

Catherine:

That's right. And even, look, something as simple as moving around in the world that you're in. So, you know, turning a corner, parking a car, it's all spatial awareness, it's all mathematics. You know, getting a big chair out of a small doorway. Spatial mathematics, right?

Shannon:

Very true.

Catherine:

So spatial reasoning is really important. A lot of people think about maths as just number, and it's so much more than that. And it's all related. So, you know, part of my philosophy is showing the connections across the curriculum, across the mathematics curriculum, not just within strands, but across strands. That's really important. And it's important that teachers get that too.

Shannon:

Absolutely. And the exposure you get as your years of teaching go on to different, like, you know, I'm talking from my own experience being a primary school teacher, being K to 6 trained, it's very important for me to understand that continuum of mathematics. And not only that, but the substrands that intertwine with one another, and the different content strands that complement as well. So, for example, when I'm teaching, you know, multiplication, for example, well, let's add to that. Let's start looking at area. And as I found my feet and got my grounding a bit more with my curriculum, I think I really started to soar and so did my learners, when I had the confidence to make those connections and start building on those cross-content strand opportunities for my learners. And I had students who, you know, we have such a range of differentiation across our student need in our classroom, but I did have a lot that were very, very talented and at that mastery level with the content at the Stage 3 level. So it was exciting to lift the ceiling and explore that connection, I suppose. And I was passionate about it, so in turn, that made such a big impact on them. So I really can see that, what you're speaking about, the theory.

Siobhan:

Yeah, and sometimes the reality is that not all teachers come into your lessons, Catherine, and have that, you know, immediate love for mathematics. And I'd be actually interested to hear, do your pre-service teachers sometimes come in with a preconceived, you know, misunderstanding potentially, of what mathematics is versus what you're describing what it actually looks like?

Catherine:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think we can't assume, particularly in primary, that everybody loves maths, everybody's good at maths, ready to teach it. Just as we have diversity in classrooms, we have diversity amongst teachers. And that was, you know, that's really part of my job at the university is how can we change the mindset of teachers, build their confidence and their capability? Because sometimes that is a challenge. You know, and getting teachers to see the links in the curriculum, for example, they're not going to see the links in mathematics if they believe they can't do maths. And so the key to that is opening up opportunities for teachers to, first of all, reflect on their relationship with mathematics and then do something about it. And it's everyone's responsibility. So if I'm in a primary school and I'm part of the staff and I notice my grade partner is not confident in mathematics, it is my responsibility to try and help that person build their capacity and build their understanding, and then develop a positive attitude. I mean, you can't have a positive attitude towards something if you haven't got confidence in it.

Shannon and Siobhan:

No.

Catherine:

So, you know, I often say to teachers, 'How often do you do maths?' Or when I talk to schools, I say, 'As a staff, how often do you sit down and do some maths?'

Shannon:

Yeah.

Catherine:

They don't do it. So how are you going to build confidence if you actually don't do the mathematics, and don't have those really lovely opportunities to work with somebody else, and to learn from somebody else and collaborate and talk about the maths?

Shannon:

One of my very early mentors, I was entering some of my students into the Maths Olympiad competition, and I was like, 'Oh my goodness. Like, this level of maths.' Like, I was. I was a bit frightened of it, to be fair. It wasn't within my, what I believed to be my capability. She's like, 'Right, well, let's sit down and do one together.' And so we sat side by side and we did a couple of them and it became a real, just like a nice little thing that we did. But it really helped me and it helped build my confidence. And I said, 'Look, can I come in and watch or observe a few lessons of you demonstrating, going through the answers or like, how to teach problem-solving as a skill?' So all of that really supported me. But you're right. If you have a bad relationship with it, your confidence really takes a hit, and that's a big part of you being able to then facilitate that joy in your classroom for your students as well.

Catherine:

And I think one thing to note too, is that sometimes people have a bad relationship with mathematics because of one incident that happened in their school life. And it could just be one small thing, one time when they might have got a question wrong and felt that they were humiliated in front of their peers or whatever, but that has a lifelong impact. So, you know, just having that deep reflection on ‘Why is it, why do I feel like this about mathematics?’ And acknowledging that is really the first step to, I guess, recovery? If we can call that recovery. But, you know, the first step to changing that relationship that you have.

Shannon:

Yeah. We often talk about how numeracy is everyone's business.

Catherine:

Yes.

Shannon:

And how important it is to, not only from the primary space, but then I go and send my students off into Stage 4, for example, over to Siobhan's patch of the world in high school. I'd be interested to hear about your thoughts on transition, so moving from the Stage 3 to Stage 4.

Catherine:

Yeah. Yep. Look, research tells us that those middle years, Years 5 to 8, are the critical years in maths education. They're the years where we lose a lot of students from mathematics. We don't literally lose them because they're still there, they're still doing the maths because they have to.

Siobhan:

But that ‘opt out’ sort of phenomenon that you were talking earlier.

Catherine:

They've opted out. And so, part of the reason for that is because in some circumstances, there's a vast difference between what they experience in the primary maths classroom and what they experience in the secondary maths classroom. There are some things that you can't avoid. You know, the architecture in secondary schools is different. The setup is, the timetable's different. You have a maths teacher. You have an English teacher. Whereas in primary, you've got one teacher. You've got all the resources in one space. But there are things that we can do. And I spent the last few days talking about transition from primary to secondary, in fact. We can actually talk to each other. I know. Primary teachers,

Shannon:

Profound.

Catherine:

Yes, to secondary teachers. Visit each other's classrooms, but actually start to talk about pedagogy and what sort of things happen in primary and secondary. We can't assume that children, just because they finished Year 6, that they're all at a certain point in their maturity and their ability, where all of a sudden they can just go from this to that and be okay. It's not the point. So, what we want it to do is to try and smooth it, have materials, concrete materials. They're so important. In lower secondary and even Year 9 and 10, it's important. Find out what students need. For secondary teachers, know the primary curriculum. For primary teachers, know the secondary curriculum, at least one stage above or below where you are. Find out where the kids are at, get to know them in secondary, talk to the primary teachers, but really know what it looks like from day to day in a primary maths classroom, so that you can actually somehow transit from those pedagogies in a smooth manner. So if kids work a certain way in primary, why can't they start Year 7 that way, and then transit to different pedagogies? There's lots of different strategies you can use. And I know there are some good schools in the department that are doing that, particularly around the Lake Macquarie area, where they're actually putting money into this and bringing feeder school teachers into the secondary, and secondary teachers into the feeder primary schools, to try and make a difference for those students.

Shannon:

Yeah, and as someone who has, as a teacher, been part of a network where we were able to go and visit some of our feeder high schools, for example, and have some of the head teachers of each of the faculties come and speak to us about the main things that they see, like gaps, for example, in student capabilities or things that they just would not expect the Year 7s, would expect them to know that are coming they don't know, for example. And I think having that open forum was really, really important and I learned a lot. They certainly learned a lot. I said, 'Well, hey, that's not in my Stage 3 syllabus.’

Catherine:

Yes.

Shannon:

So there was a lot of realisations, I suppose, because at times, it can feel like two totally different worlds. But we're on the same team here and we want to bring the students from K all the way through to 12, so.

Siobhan:

And not just in mathematics, right?

Shannon:

And not just in mathematics.

Siobhan:

Across all subject areas.

Shannon:

Absolutely.

Catherine:

Yeah, I think sometimes we forget in education that we're all here for the same reason. And we all have the same end goal.

Shannon:

We do, yeah.

Catherine:

Is that successful students, right? And happy students.

Shannon:

Yeah, it's important to keep that at the forefront, isn't it, at all times.

Siobhan:

Definitely. Now, I was really excited to talk about this particular topic in terms of the fact that when we spoke previously, you told us that you prefer the term ‘effective practice’ or ‘best-fit practice’ rather than just ‘best practice.’ So can you tell us a little bit about why that is so, and potentially share some examples of what ‘best-fit practice’ actually looks like in mathematics?

Catherine:

So I really cringe when I hear ‘best practice’ because that really implies that there is a practice out there,

Siobhan:

One way.

Catherine:

That fits everybody.

Siobhan:

Yeah.

Catherine:

And, you know, there's a lot of argument at the moment around education and pedagogy and some of that argument is spruiking ‘one way’. And I always think back to Dylan Wiliam's quote where he says, 'Everything works somewhere, but nothing works everywhere.'

Siobhan:

Everywhere.

Shannon:

Yeah.

Catherine:

Right? Context is everything. So, you know, what will work in one school may not work in the school down the road. What will work in one classroom will not necessarily work in the classroom next door. The way that I speak to teachers is I say, 'There's only one best practice and that's the best practice in the here and now.' So really, it's ‘effective practice’ or ‘best-fit practice.’ It's, what do my students need today and how am I going to adjust my practices to suit their needs? There cannot be just one practice. So I think a teacher needs to have a flexible repertoire of practices that he or she can draw on, according to whatever's necessary, whatever's going to suit those kids in that moment, on that day.

Shannon and Siobhan:

Yeah.

Catherine:

So an example is, okay, there's a lot of talk at the moment about how we start a maths lesson and whether we do this review thing where we have, you know, 8 questions or whatever. There's lots of different ways to do that. If you start to get into this fixed structure, well, first of all, it's boring as a teacher. It's boring for a student. But are you actually going to find out what your students know by asking a series of questions or are the kids going to get the answers wrong every day, and you do nothing about it? If you start, for example, some of your lessons with a number talk where you're actually getting the kids to reason and talk and share, you're going to learn a lot more about what your students know. Or if you start with a quick game or whatever it is. It can still be a review, right? It's still assessment on your feet. But it doesn't always have to be that strict format that some people are actually encouraging at the moment. I think teachers need some autonomy in their work. We need to recognise that they are professionals, and we need to recognise that it's the teacher who knows his or her students best, and they need to have some say in how their lessons are structured to best meet the needs of their students.

Shannon:

I think that was one of my driving forces as well in the classroom . Like, having that autonomy, taking the curriculum. I know my outcomes, I know what my students need to achieve. How am I going to get there? Well, okay, I know student A, B, and C are really interested in this. All right, let's bring that in, let's weave that in. And it was the creativity and that diversity of being able to showcase it, and bring the content to life with my students. That was where I really thrived in the classroom, because it's so exciting, right?

Catherine:

It is exciting. And also, we need to make sure that the students are feeling challenged. I mean, at the moment there's this push around, just little bits, little bites, but you don't really learn if you're not challenged. It's the level of challenge that's important. You know, making sure that it's not too hard and not too easy. But we want to feel challenged. Because when we feel challenged and we actually succeed, that's when the learning happens and that's where we feel really great about our learning. So, you know, all of these things are important.

Shannon:

Absolutely. The sweaty brain.

Siobhan:

I was just about to say. They need to get their brain sweaty, as Shannon would say.

Catherine:

Yeah, yeah, or.

Shannon:

Like, ‘Is your brain sweaty? If it's not that sweaty, okay, maybe we could go a level 3 challenge today.’

Catherine:

Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, kids want to work hard. I mean, that's part of understanding engagement, is not just having fun. It's nothing to do with having fun. It's working hard, right? It's thinking hard, and it's feeling good about what you're learning.

Shannon:

Yeah, that sense of achievement, absolutely.

Siobhan:

Yeah, and you described mathematics before as this sort of colourful journey and adventure. How do you encourage others to make mathematics colourful?

Catherine:

Well, I think the creativity of tasks. I mean, I don't like the old style worksheet type thing with a repetition, you know, asking them to do the same thing 20 times. If they can do it once or twice, I'm pretty sure they can do it 20 times. So why make them do it? Or if they're going to make a mistake twice, why make them make 20 mistakes?

Siobhan:

Make a mistake 20 times.

Catherine:

So I'm really interested in a whole range of strategies, including open-ended tasks and problem solving. I mean, we learn maths to solve problems. That's why we learn mathematics. Yet some people are saying, 'No, no, no, no. Teach them all of the maths they need to know before they're introduced to the problem.' Well, actually, it's no longer a problem if you know the maths, so why do it? But, you know, I like hands-on stuff. And I'm not saying that there's no paper, there's no recording. There's lots of different ways to incorporate hands on. You know, where possible and where appropriate, make it related to real life, if it's a natural fit, if it's authentic. But, you know, flipping things, getting kids to turn problems on their head and write their own problems and then solve them. There's lots of different things that you could do. I could be here all day talking about different strategies. There's so many. But, you know, it just proves the point that there's just not one method of teaching.

Siobhan:

And have fun with it. Like, from what I'm hearing. Enjoy challenging your students. Enjoy coming up with a new way to present a task even. To me that just sounds so exciting. And the idea of sort of throwing repetition out the window and replacing it with that fun and creativity, I think is, yeah, the key to a successful mathematics lesson.

Shannon:

I think for me, once I opened the floodgates almost with the creativity, in that sense, for my mathematics lessons. You know, I'm out at the beach, I'm thinking about, like, could we look at the sand? What could we do with that?

Catherine:

It's a curse.

Shannon:

And then it just never stopped.

Siobhan:

It's a blessing and a curse.

Shannon:

I'm driving in the car and thinking, 'Hm, town planning, like, how could we bring that into maths?'

Catherine:

Why not? I mean, you know, you see things in the newspaper, or, you know, not so much newspaper these days, but on the news or whatever, headlines that the kids would be hearing or listening to, and you think, 'Well, I can actually make that into a really valuable maths task.’ And the thing is, with a good task, so a good, rich task, you're actually hitting a lot of the curriculum areas, and you can still do your explicit teaching in the task.

Shannon:

Absolutely.

Catherine:

Like, you don't have to do the, it's not always the ‘I do, we do, you do’ model. You can mix it up a bit. But you can actually even do some of that within the task. So give it purpose and relevance and give it context, I think. That's really important.

Shannon:

Absolutely.

Siobhan:

My best lessons were always the ones where I was driving to school on the way there, something was happening in the news or something came on, or I'd seen something that morning, and I'd created a task out of it. And it was in the moment, the students could relate to it. We took it in lots of different directions. I wasn't necessarily, you know, had everything printed and planned and prepared, because I let them go off and sort of brainstorm or look into, do a bit of research on the topic, come back, present it in a new, fun and exciting way. And I just think, yeah, that's the joy of teaching.

Shannon:

Yeah, and as a profession, if you do have that ability to be agile, you really lift the ceiling on your own practice as well.

Catherine:

Absolutely, and I think, you know, coming back to engagement, engaged teachers make engaged students. And then it's like a reciprocal relationship because teachers feed off their students' engagement. You just got to get into that cycle.

Siobhan:

Yeah, definitely.

Shannon:

That's a good point.

Siobhan:

So if you were a pre-service teacher yourself now, where would you turn to or where would you recommend somebody turn to for support, guidance, or even connection with the mathematics community?

Catherine:

That's a really good question. Very early in my career, and I'd do it again, I got involved in the Maths Association of New South Wales.

Siobhan:

Nice.

Catherine:

And I got on their committees. I mean, you don't have to do that, but they run professional learning, for example, but they also have special interest groups. They have groups for early career teachers that you can just go along to. There's support. There's resources. So I would be turning to a professional association like the Maths Association of New South Wales.

Siobhan:

Excellent.

Shannon:

Okay. Great advice. And then thinking again about our pre-service, early career teachers who are about to step into the classroom, how can they be innovative with mathematics?

Catherine:

So, finding ways to get your students to think, to solve problems, to have a voice in their classroom, and using what's around you, giving it context and making it meaningful. I think that's innovation. I'm working at the moment, I'm about to start work on a project looking at how artificial intelligence can help teachers design really good tasks in maths education. So I'm really excited to start that, because I think that can help with innovation, getting the voice of AI. Alongside that, of course, you've got your teachers, their mathematical knowledge for teaching. But I'm really interested in the interplay between the teacher and the AI and the product.

Siobhan:

Yeah, well, the teacher's the one that's going to differentiate it for their context and, you know, potentially they could use the AI model to come up with crafty, creative ideas.

Catherine:

Absolutely. So I think to me, that's my innovation at the moment, is, you know, how can we harness AI to help us work smarter, not harder, but also to help us work in a more innovative way?

Siobhan:

Interesting. Well, looking forward to see the results of that. That sounds exciting. It's here to stay, I suppose. So why not use it for good?

Shannon:

Yeah, I think, you know, let's embrace it.

Catherine:

Yes, we have to. We have no choice.

Shannon:

Well, that's all we have time for today on this episode of the Teach NSW Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you, Catherine, for joining us on the couch for this wonderful conversation.

Catherine:

Thank you.

Shannon:

It's been a really inspiring conversation and I'm hoping that pre-service, early career, and even just people who are going about their careers, are listening to this episode and feeling inspired to teach mathematics.

Catherine:

Thank you.

Shannon:

Until next time, we'll see you soon. Bye.

Shannon:

Thank you for tuning in to the Teach NSW Podcast, where we explore the dynamic world of education. Don't forget to follow, like, and subscribe, to be notified when new episodes become available. You can find us on social media via our handle @TeachNSW. Until next time, keep learning, keep teaching, and keep making a difference. This podcast is produced by the Teach NSW team from the NSW Department of Education.

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