This article is a continuation of the article “Should Mathematics Instruction in Secondary Schools Be Resource-Based?” I will detail my experience in setting up such a center in high school where I was head of the Math department.

I was appointed at a time in Queensland (mid 1980s) where the Department of Education was revising the mathematics curriculum for years one to ten to meet the needs of all students and to reflect changes in the field of mathematics. the maths.

Several years later, there was an even more radical revision of the Mathematics curricula in grades 11 and 12.

As a result of these changes, it was obvious that we needed to expand our pedagogical teaching. This meant that we needed to acquire teaching assistants to help us use a variety of pedagogues.

For me, as a department head, I needed to develop a list of the resources we needed and find a room to store them and a procedure to use them.

My first task was to develop a professional library for my teaching staff. In consultation with the school librarian, I arranged for my department to “borrow” all of the professional reading texts on math instruction and place them in our resource room. Every year, I budgeted to add to those books.

I would buy books on all the new curriculum topics, problem solving, out-of-state textbooks, new texts written for the new curriculum, and scour second-hand bookstores for old texts.

The next task was to review the curriculum to be introduced the following year to assess the resources we needed to implement, in particular the new topics eg. Earth geometry. The new curriculum was introduced one year at a time. I would have to put the name of those resources in the development section of my budget. You would have to take into account the number of students to decide how many resources you would need. Initially, I would buy a set of classes to research their usefulness before buying more in the future if those resources prove useful.

Below is a short list of resources I had in the resource center. It is not exhaustive. They include: sets of vintage textbooks to use for specific topics; maps and charts; metric rulers; sextants; measuring tapes; tell; accountants; rolling wheels; graph paper and colored paper, light cardboard; four operations calculators; graphing and scientific calculators*; laptops*; line documents for evaluation; videos; films; And the list could go on. The copy of all our computer software was also safely stored here.

Each year, our school participated in various Math contests. The contest booklet was compiled and stored for future classroom use.

Previous copies of assessment items have been stored as a resource for teachers to use to create a review test and as a guide to the test standard required at each grade level.

We were fortunate to have our own teacher’s assistant assigned to our department. She bypasses the resource room and this was her base. I made sure she had the best computer, printer, and software available to her. She would oversee the loan of resources and organize the resources ready for collection from her for the corresponding teaching period upon a written request.

As part of the resource boost, each teacher was given a box for their daily needs in the classroom. Each year they were assigned an amount of money to spend on the resources they wanted. He would buy these resources in bulk. Each year the teacher could add to his tote box.

Some final comments:

1. Make sure the resources available for a particular topic are listed in the work program with suggestions on how to use them.

2. Always evaluate the initial use of a resource before buying more.

3. Encourage your staff to share successful ideas they used with particular resources.

4. Encourage your staff to make suggestions for additional resources.

5. Do not purchase resources where small items, if lost or stolen, prevent future use of that resource.

6. Take an inventory each year so you can discover which resources need to be replaced or expanded.

7. With computer software, always test its usefulness in the classroom before purchasing a license for many computers, as these programs can be expensive. There may be ways to purchase software through your local education authority to reduce costs.

8. Simple, easy-to-use computer programs are often more effective in a classroom situation than more sophisticated programs.