Reports on recent College activities and a selection of announcements, events and initiatives in the wider education community.
OCT lands starring role
When Norm MacQueen, OCT, left the acting profession at age 38 to pursue a teaching career, he never imagined that he'd soon land a starring role on TV.
"I'm so lucky," says MacQueen, who plays Uncle Norm, a central figure in the new children's series, The Prime Radicals, on TVO. "The show combines my two passions - education and entertainment. It's like winning the lottery." MacQueen is also a long-term occasional English and dramatic arts teacher at Glebe Collegiate Institute in the Ottawa-Carleton DSB.
In each 15-minute episode, Uncle Norm's two teenage sidekicks help him understand a mathematical concept by relating it to a real-life situation. The Ottawa-taped series is aimed at kids in Grades 1 to 3 and often ventures outside of the studio. A lesson on telling time involves a visit to the Peace Tower clock; understanding shapes takes the troupe to a kite maker.
"Math should be non-threatening and accessible," says Queen's University education associate professor Lynda Colgan, who suggests the learning concept for each episode based on the Ontario math curriculum.
Colgan, a former elementary school teacher, is on a lifelong mission to counter society's negative attitudes toward mathematics. "By the time they are in Grade 3, half the kids say they don't like math and are not very good at it," she says. "But if people don't understand basic mathematical concepts, there's a lot in their daily lives that they won't be able to understand. I want to make math interesting and fun." Colgan, who appears in two episodes, sees The Prime Radicals as a tremendous opportunity to change public attitudes. "The program brings engaging math to the public on a scale grander than I imagined possible," she says. "And I love that the kids are teaching the adult."
To watch full episodes, visit facebook.com/primeradicals. The show's web site primeradicals.com is also a good resource for parents and teachers.
Long-term occasional teacher Norm MacQueen is math-loving Uncle Norm in the new series The Prime Radicals on TVOkids.
