Measuring and Tracking Progress

PROBLEM: My kids struggle to explain and justify their thinking and reasoning in maths.

WONDERING: How can I develop the mathematical dialogic discourse ability of my children?

One issue I had was working out how to measure the mathematical dialogic discourse ability of my kids. Anecdotally I could see that they struggle to explain and justify their thinking but how was I going to get quantifiable data. I discussed my problem with Dr Rebecca Jesson and we came up with (well she came up with) this solution.

I will record my target group during a maths lesson then I'll listen back and note down every time a child uses specific (which is yet to be decided) justifying and explaining language and each time they refer to the context of the maths problem when explaining their thinking.  I will also be noting down how often they need teacher prompts to draw out an explanation. By doing this regularly I should be able track and measure the kids mathematical dialogic discourse ability.

Target group PAT data

PROBLEM: My kids struggle to explain and justify their thinking and reasoning in maths.

WONDERING: How can I develop the mathematical dialogic discourse ability of my children?

As mentioned in my previous post my target group is made up of 3 boys and 3 girls. Below is a table of their Term 1 PAT maths data. While my focus is to develop the dialogic discourse ability of my children I hypothesise that if this happens then their mathematical knowledge and ability will also increase making them more proficient mathematicians.

The target group were selected because they struggle to vocalise what they are thinking. It's interesting to see that the struggle to explain and justify your thinking and engage in dialogic discourse is evident across the varying academic levels.

Student feedback

Recently I gave my class whole class a survey to complete around speaking in class. I wanted to hear from them their thoughts about sharing their thinking and speaking in class, how difficult they find and what makes it difficult etc.

Below are some of the interesting trends collected from my target group survey responses. My target groups responses to all questions can be found here.

- Every target child noted 'I'm afraid of what others will think of me' as a reason for what stops them from sharing their opinion in class.

- 4/6 noted 'They don't want to get a wrong answer' as a reason for what stops them from sharing their opinion in class.

- 4/6 said their equally happy sharing their thinking in front of either gender. 2/4 noted it would be easier sharing the thinking in groups f the same sex as them.

- Overall they are not interested in listening to others thinking


It's evident from these responses that I we have a lot of work to do in creating a supportive mathematical community where kids feel safe to share their thinking and one where they value the thinking of their peers.

My target group

PROBLEM: My kids struggle to explain and justify their thinking and reasoning in maths.

WONDERING: How can I develop the mathematical dialogic discourse ability of my children?

My target group is made up of 3 boys and 3 girls. They were selected because they struggle to vocalise what they are thinking but more importantly they are kids who work well when given a task and would be up for a challenge. Three of the children are naturally quieter than some which may be a contributing factor to them struggling to share their thinking.

My next steps involve hearing from the children themselves. I want to find how they feel about  sharing their own opinions and thinking, how easy they find it and if they find it a challenge what are the contributing factors that make it a challenge. Watch this space.