A day out at Chi Uni

Well despite being a very long day, this turned out to be fantastic, inspirational, enjoyable, useful and any other cliched adjective I can think of.
We set off at seven a.m., my colleague driving because I 'don't do motorways'. Yes, I know at my age that's ridiculous, but I have an irrational fear of leaving a trail of destruction behind me due to my non existent motorway driving skills. But that's an irrelevance.
After quite a pleasant drive between London and the south coast we arrived just before 9am. A little too early for the start of the session, so we grabbed some delicious breakfast in the Uni cafe.
Nice and full we headed of to meet the MA Maths Ed tutors and all of the other students from all years of the course.
For the first session, we were split by years, so all of us first years were together. It was quite a basic session - have we got Uni / NUS cards? Have we logged on to the Uni portal?
The answer to both questions for most of our particular cohort was 'no'. So first we headed of to have a pic taken and get cards. Now I'd uploaded a really nice head pic (as requested) for my card - about the only nice pic I've ever had taken! - but they didn't have it. So I had a grotty old pic taken with my hair swept right back into some sort of slick style. Not a good look. but hey, it's not like I'll need my card for anything. I'll just hide it away somewhere.
Then off to ICT. All of us had problems getting on to the portal - which kind of implies it was a problem their end!
A really nice 'IT guy' got everyone logged in by changing passwords - except me! My problem was bigger apparently. I had to wait around whilst everyone else went back to discuss the module assignment. I was to get set up then meet everyone else at the next session.

It was a fantasic session. Hosted by John Mason and Anne Watson - two hugely respected people in the field of Mathematics Education. Whilst I was on my own, waiting for everyone else to meet up, I was party to a converstion that made me realise they were husband and wife! Wow! Now I'm sure this isn't actually a secret, but nobody else seemed to know that.

(Until I find my session notes, I can't remember the actual title of the session - will add later)

We were then treated to a lovely lunch - all that sea air had made me quite hungry. I had fish and chips, of course, and a huge chunk of carrot cake which I actually couldn't manage until later in the day. Our group all sat together and chatted. It was 'nice'.

We reconvened to talk about accessing research material and professional journals. This session made me rather worried about the task we were to undertake. I'm actually worried that a) I'm not good enough for this and b) how will I cope?

The final session that I had elected to attend was cancelled. Only three of us had chosen it, so we were placed in another session by Anne Watson: Trigonometry (full title?).

Panic set in. I can remember basic trig of course, but what if it goes higher? I can't remember a damn thing because I haven't had to teach it in 15 years! I even got a little refresher on trig graphs by one of my classmates, just to be sure I had it right! How embarrassing!

In fact, it was the most inspirational session of the day. It was about how we teach trig, the barriers faced by children when accessing trig, and how we, as teachers, can pre-empt some of these barriers for greater understanding.

I left the room feeling elated. I had contributed successfully to discussions and received a copy of some of the (limited) research available on teaching trigonometry. Anne Watson. My

(to be continued)