7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and community

7.4.1 Understand the role of external professionals and community representatives in broadening teachers’ professional knowledge and practice.

The aim of the event was to excite students' interest in mathematics, encourage them to take more advanced mathematics courses, and to introduce them to surveying as a potential occupation. My aims, in being involved, were:

• to gain class-management experience in working with high school students;

• to connect with members of the wider mathematics community in NSW,; and

• to learn about options for mathematics students so I could recommend and advocate for them to future students.

The event was a revelation for me in a number of ways: the enthusiasm of the surveyors for their profession; the opportunities available to surveyors, and the variety of projects and tasks they might work on; the extent, and the detail, with which they prepared for and documented the activities, as larger-scale classroom lessons; and the collegial relationship between mathematics and education professionals, and professionals in related occupations. I found it inspiring and encouraging to see that, as a mathematics teacher, I might be able to help students find possibilities like this for their own careers.