Decimal Place Value - Popsicle Decimals - Google Class OnAir episode

Below is a video and reflection of a place value lesson I recently did with my children. As mentioned in an earlier post I was challenged to use materials as a way of building the children's decimal place value knowledge. This was my first attempt. To see examples of the children's finished work please go to my Class OnAir site.

Reflection
I found this lesson a bit of a struggle. Some of the children were reluctant to engage, maybe because they thought they were beyond this however evidence from their classwork and GLOSS test indicates otherwise. This lesson highlighted to me how important materials are for teaching decimal place value. With using materials the children quickly latched onto the idea that 1 popsicle stick represented 1/10 so 3 popsicle sticks represented 3/10 and so on. It also made it easier for them to add decimals together. The next steps involve removing the scaffolds and getting the children to work with tenths without the popsicle sticks

Decimal place value knowledge - Materials, materials, materials!

Last week our team was fortunate enough to have a tailored session with Jo Knox about about assessing and teaching maths in Year 7 & 8.  While the whole session was very useful the part I found most helpful was Jo's take on teaching decimal place value knowledge.

For my CoL inquiry I'm inquiring into how I can significantly develop the math knowledge of my children. This term I am focussing on developing their decimal place value knowledge.

When I asked Jo how she goes about teaching decimal place value her response was 'Materials, materials, materials' She said using materials such as decipipes, decimats, chocolate bars and bundles of 10 ice block sticks are imperative in developing conceptual decimal understanding.

The idea of using materials to develop decimal knowledge is also supported by NZ Maths which states "In developing an understanding of decimal numbers and their relative size, it is important that the students themselves use equipment to create a range of physical representations of numbers". With this in mind I will be endeavouring to create rich learning experiences using materials. I hypothesis that this combined with rich create activities will develop my children's knowledge of decimal place value and other mathematical concepts. I'll keep you posted on how I get on.

New focus and hypothesis: Decimal Place Value

As mentioned in earlier posts my COL inquiry focus is looking at how can I improve my kids mathematical number knowledge using the Learn Create Share pedagogy? In previous months I was looking at increasing my kids times tables knowledge. My focus is now shifting to their knowledge of decimal place value. At Year 7 & 8 the children should be able to add and subtract numbers up to 2 decimal places. Evidence from classwork and conversations with the children highlighted general gaps in or misconceptions about their decimal place value knowledge. For instance:

Adding tenths to the hundredths column.
3.12 + 9.4 = 12.16

I hypothesise this comes from viewing decimal numbers as whole numbers i.e 12 hundredths as 12 and lack of understanding of the base 10 system. I will be looking at ways to address these misconceptions and place value knowledge gaps.      

Hearing from the children.

In order to better support my maths children in their learning I wanted to find out more about their own level of mathematics confidence and how much support they receive from home. Below is some of the data from a survey given to the children.



1 - I don't enjoy it at all         5 - I love learning maths at school

This result surprised me. I assumed that most of the responses would have been around 2 & 3. It is encouraging to see that most of the class do enjoy learning maths at school. Further investigation will be needed to find out what I can do to help the 2 students who don't enjoy learning maths at school.
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1 - Not confident           5 - Very confident

Again these results surprised me. It was encouraging to see that 38% had some confidence in their maths ability and it was pleasing to see that none of the children had no confidence.

Interestingly while 65% of the children could think of two adults in their life who had encouraged and supported them in maths only 42% said they get help with their maths from anyone at home. On further investigation for most of those children who indicated 2 adults support them in maths, one of those adults was a teacher.

There are a lot of takeaways from this data. I am yet to work out how this data will affect my teaching and lessons however it has given me much to think about.

Maths PD with Jo Knox

Today we had Jo Knox taking us for Maths PD. These are notes taken from my colleague Hayley Judd who kindly shared them with me and allowed me to post them.

 The objectives of the PD were to

- Identify clear links between Number framework with national curriculum levels and National standards

- Know how to use assessment data

Knowledge and strategies intertwine.

Knowledge:
Number Id
Number sequence and order
Grouping and place value

IKAN is a tool to assess knowledge

Strategy:
Add/sub
Mult/Div
prop/ratios

GLOSS is a toll to assess strategy

"The primary purpose of assessment is to improve students learning and teachers teaching as BOTH student and teacher respond to the information that it provides"

- How is this assessment informing our planning and teaching?

Formative or summative assessment?

Exploring Number Knowledge:

Numeral ID, Sequencing and Ordering, Grouping/ Place Value, Basic Facts:

Important pieces of information we should know instantly- or so the Ministry says. Jo disagrees, so took away the time limit on certain sections of the IKAN

Advantages: It is quick

Disadvantages: time pressure, chn have to look up and down, questions go too quick.

Reflection: Maybe IKAN is just to be used for specific chn to provide a snapshot

Maybe give chn to option to sit back with their marked test and they can fix up the ones they know (not wasting time learning what they know) and then pick two things they want to learn based on their mistakes.

Spider graphs for GLoSS and IKAN

These are great to show the glaring gaps, where students are aiming for, and their strengths. Be careful if the kids are working well below, as their lines will all be in the middle and might discourage them.

How do I use the data to inform my planning?

IKAN class summary sheet: shows gaps (highlighted)

Highlight all data, including names

Data: sort range: column d. 

This will sort from lowest to highest stage. Will show some common gaps in knowledge that you can fill as the Teacher.

PAT tests:

Individual reports give stanine, where the children sit on the bell curve, black correct answers, light is incorrect, transparent is omitted. Red line is the average. The key will show you whether the test was too hard or too easy. 

Below is the presentation that Jo went through when speaking to us.