Bursts & Bubbles - Celebrating my 2022 Inquiry!

 

Presentation

Monitoring, Recording, and Tweaking – What have I found out?

Share data that you have collected/ recorded about the implementation of your changed practices or intervention

Describe the evidence you have so far about the effects of your changed practices or intervention on desired learner outcomes and how you summarised and recorded these

Towards the end of Term 3, I began to record our problem solving lessons in order to observe myself and the learners during the process. It became apparent that the recordings were not showing the progress I had anticipated.

My main reflections from rewatching these lessons were:

• Providing the learners opportunity to act out and draw the problems aided in their comprehension of the problems. 

• Learners were confident working through the first part of the framework, where they noticed and highlighted the important information of the problem. However, the rest of the framework needed to be worked through together with the teacher. 

• I am explicitly teaching and modelling the specific Learning Process thinking skills: Notice, Find, Plan, Group and Solve support learners to solve maths problems.

The recordings have allowed me to pick up on any of the learners misunderstandings in number knowledge, strategy or mathematical vocabulary. This informed my number knowledge/strategy workshops for the following week. 

Explain  

This inquiry has made me reflect that both myself and the learners are at an emergent stage of the problem solving journey and I have made tweaks along the way. In Term 2, I was observed teaching problem solving and it was noticed that we were creating problem solving tasks that were more an ‘application’ type of task. This feedback allowed me to tweak my learning design and it meant that now the tasks had many possible answers, instead of just one. 

Open ended mathematical applications to allow learners to:

• Develop problem solving strategies

• Demonstrate use of mathematical knowledge

• Build further mathematical knowledge

• Experience meaningful contexts for mathematics

Mid Year Data

At Stonefields School we have had an update of our mid-year data. Below is the Whole School Snapshot for our Maths OTJ’s. 

Year 3 Shift Data:

The overall year group shift data uses matched data to show how different year groups have made more or less than expected shift in the last 12 months. Year 3 saw an overall increase in the number of learners moving from working within to working towards expectation. This negative shift helps affirm my target group as they are all Year 3 learners currently working towards Stage 5. 

This data gives me motivation to keep up the mahi in my inquiry so I can see positive change in the data at the end of year.

Tohatoha | Share Staff Meeting

Last week, myself and educators from around the country were able to kōrero, connect and share what is currently happening in our akomanga. It was great to hear the new knowledge and skills they had acquired and the resulting changes they had made in their practice. 

Thank you to all the participants, I am grateful for the rich dialogue and resources shared:

DIMIC

Special Addition Marie Hurst 

Master the curriculum 

White Rose Maths

AMA Auckland Maths Association

Bruce Moody 

Wilkie Way Maths Charlotte Wilkinson

From Planning to Implementation

Restate your inquiry question:
How will I develop learners' ability to solve problems in maths through thinking skills and a problem solving framework to raise achievement in maths?

Implementation =

The learning outcomes I want to improve for my students in this inquiry are:

• Further develop learners key number knowledge and strategies.

• Design a problem solving framework to help learners in maths.

• Learners are able to explain their thinking and how they solve problems in maths.

The changes I have made to my teaching practise are:

• Incorporating problem solving in to my weekly maths programme

• The problem solving groups are of mixed ability allowing students to learn from each other, and not have their learning capped by their group's achievement “level”. 

• Inquiring into problem solving also influenced how I teach my number knowledge and strategy workshops. I went back to basics and used the NZ Numeracy Development Projects Books (Book 5 and 6). In these workshops learners have 'mini' problems to solve as well, broadening their exposure to problem solving activities throughout the week.

  
  
  

• Explicit teaching of what problem solving is (how to think, talk, act like a mathematician, maths talk moves) Adoption of the talk moves in maths discussions, is allowing the students time to wrestle with the problem on their own.

• Create a problem solving framework for learners to use. (which includes the Learning Process thinking skills)

Monitoring =
Throughout the intervention I have monitored progress using SchoolTalk evidence, student work samples, learner voice and teachers notes. 

I will keep samples from my target learner group from the beginning of the year till now and it will show the progress they have made. This information will be recorded on my blog.

Reflection =
Learners are engaging with the framework and need to continue using the problem solving framework as practice. My next step is to record some lessons so I can listen back and note down every time I model a Learning Process thinking skill and every time a learner uses the Learning Process thinking skills.

I want to further develop learners' ability to share their maths learning. This relates to my previous blog post about turbo boosting digital technologies. My next step is to screencastify my target group are able to explain their thinking and how they solve problems in maths. Screencasts redefine learning:  If they are created independently or collaboratively by students, they can then be uploaded onto a sharing platform and students can receive feedback from peers.  

Turbocharge Effective Practice

 A key consideration for the Manaiakalani Kāhui Ako is our pedagogy Learn Create Share, including how we are capitalising on the affordances of the technology to turbo charge effective practice. 

At our most recent PLG we were asked:

Have you identified this as a current strength or an area of development in your practice?

I reflected on this and feel it is an area I want to develop =

• Transform the way we learn

• Offer new experiences

• Offer new opportunities

→ Google Screencast for learners

During our Talanoa a few of my CoL colleagues sparked some inspiration for me:

- Clarelle Carruthers about Rewindable resources.

e.g. a rewindable video of peers explaining their maths thinking.

Am I providing enough opportunities for children to rewind and revisit their learning?

- Hannah West shared her Honours Dissertation with me around using student-created screencasts in maths.

Will screencasts allow my target learners to provide additional valuable mathematical thinking through oral language rather than only written problem solving? 

I am so grateful to have inspiring colleagues, and opportunities to openly share practise and ideas during our CoL PLG's. 

Causal Chain

The purpose of a causal chain is to tighten up my intervention and to understand more deeply what I did that resulted in a shift in student achievement.