20 children responded to the survey question but only 7 answered the question in it's entirety. The others opted to simply answer yes or no without explaining what I could do to help. Out of the 7 who responded in full 4 of them said something along the lines of "spending more time with the teacher". This surprised me as the introduction of the maths tumble meant I was seeing each group regularly. I asked those four children to elaborate on what the wanted and they all mentioned they wanted one on one or smaller group time with me. As it turned out when I asked the class to close their eyes and raise their hand if they would like to have more teacher time in a smaller group setting 4/5 of them raised their hand.
With 20 kids indicating they would like more time with me to help them in their maths learning I have initiated 'Book da teacher'. The children can book in a 10 minute time slot with me using a google sheet via our team's website. The 2 conditions are: A maximum of 3 people per session and the children must come to the session with something to work on or a problem.
'Book da teacher' is now in it's second week of running. To my surprise in the first 2 days no one booked in. When I questioned the kids about what was going on it turned out they were confused as to what they should come to me with. After some further elaboration the booking sheet started to fill up. It is still early days but I am hoping that this initiative will be a small step towards lifting the maths achievement of my kids.
Superb Rob. I am loving reading stories like this from our teachers who have been asking the kids about how they learn (or want to learn) and are implementing change on this basis. Looking forward to the next instalment on this.
ReplyDeleteKia Ora Rob,
ReplyDelete"Book Da Teacher" sounds way cooler than how we put it in our hub space, we just say "book a workshop". Might have to steal this term!
My wondering for why it has not been as effective as hoped (I read your post after this as well) is maybe down to your conditions? In particular the one where the learners need to come with a problem. I can see the agency lense here but I wonder if as they are starting out you could scaffold it? Do learners know what they need to work on? Could you take sessions which focus on gaps in knowledge from IKAN? or Gloss? tests they have recently done where they can clearly see the gaps and have test examples to help them create possible problems they may need to work on?
Great idea,some students are to shy to ask in class because of peer pressure
ReplyDelete