TOORMINA High School students and teachers were inspired to make use of more mathematics in their lives after an interactive, in-person presentation in the school hall with master mathematician Eddie Woo.

He has captured the imagination of kids around the world, showing them another way to engage with mathematics.

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Eddie’s WooTube channel has an engaged following of 1.34 million subscribers and more than 95 million views worldwide.

Eddie Woo, leader of Mathematics Growth for the NSW Department of Education, visited Toormina High School on Wednesday 8 June and presented this exciting opportunity for the students and local mathematics teachers to participate in a lesson about understanding mathematics.

Eddie has one of his trainers based at Toormina High School and working within the network of schools in the area.

Eddie is a classroom teacher at Cherrybrook Technology High School, the Education Ambassador for the University of Sydney, an author and TV host.

He is best known for his online mathematics lessons published on YouTube (https://misterwootube.com/).

In 2018, Eddie was awarded the Australia’s Local Hero Award.

In his Rethinking Mathematical Success masterclass Eddie worked through a set of six core skills that all play a part in working out mathematical problems and demonstrated patterns and reasoning that are widely applicable in maths and life in general.

The students and teachers were given puzzles and practical examples of fresh ways to approach mathematics.

Fired up after having a selfie taken with his new maths hero, Year 11 student Albert Squires told News Of The Area, “It was great, inspirational, really good.”

Madasun Buckley, Year 11, was equally enthused, telling NOTA, “He’s such a nice person – I loved it, very inspiring.”

Keira McEwan, Year 11, said, “This was the first time I’ve seen Eddie and I learnt a lot – it was a pretty good experience.”

For Eddie, while he’s glad the students enjoyed the masterclass, it’s inspiring the teachers he sees as his long term gain from these personal appearances.

“I can speak to thousands of kids but if their everyday experience doesn’t change, if what they get from their regular classroom teacher doesn’t incorporate these ideas, then it doesn’t make a lasting difference,” Eddie told NOTA.

“The thing that’s most important to me is the teachers in the room being able to see some of how this works with their own students and then be able to incorporate that in their classrooms.

“That’s how we change our society’s attitude and perspective on mathematics, by changing the way students experience mathematics every day.”

The Mathematics Growth Team Trainer roles across NSW are all about providing support to teachers through professional learning.

The Trainer is embedded in the school, both taking regular mathematics classes and leading professional learning with the team of mathematics staff.

“I’ve never met a teacher who didn’t want to improve how they could teach, to engage students more – they all do – but they need access to expertise, time, resources and research, so that is what my initiative is all about…and I’m really pleased we can partner with Toormina High School and other high schools to share this.”

By Andrea FERRARI