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.

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.
.



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.

The times tables hurdle

Times tables basic facts have always been a common hurdle for kids to get over. Not only do they have to understand the concept but they then have to go about the process of memorising them which can be painful and boring.

This year I have a maths class of 27 year 7/8 children. It is evident from conversations with the children and their IKAN test scores that there is a general lacking in times tables knowledge.  This is holding them back from learning and understanding more advanced mathematical concepts and strategies.

My CoL inquiry focus this year is: How can I significantly improve my kids mathematical knowledge using the Learn Create Share pedagogy? This term I will be inquiring into how I can develop the multiplication knowledge of my kids. My first step will be investigating how to get 'buy in' from the children. As mentioned above the process of learning times tables can be painful and boring, but what if it wasn't? What if it was fun and engaging and kids really wanted to learn them? Who knows what amazing shifts could be made in the children's maths progress this year. I'm looking forward to finding out.


Image courtesy of janjf93 pixabay

Manaiakalani Community of Learning

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The Manaiakalani Community of Learning is working together on this task using the expertise existing in of our community of learning.

In 2017 for my inquiry I have selected the following CoL achievement challenge 

#6. Lift the achievement in maths for all students years 1-13.

More specifically my focus question is :

How can I significantly improve my Year 7 & 8 kids mathematical knowledge within a Learn Create Share pedagogy?

The teaching as inquiry framework I will be using in 2017 has been specifically co-constructed for Manaiakalani schools using our familiar Learn Create Share structure.
The elements in this framework share close similarities with other models New Zealand teachers use.

I will be labelling my posts as I update my inquiry throughout the year to make the content easy to access.

Labels:

LEvidence, LScan, LTrend, LHypothesise, LResearch, LReflect,

 CPlan, CTry, CInnovate, CImplement, CReflect,

SPublish, SCoteach, SModel, SGuide, SFback, SReflect

Label Key:

LEvidence	Learn - Gather Evidence	CPlan	Create - Make a plan	SPublish	Share - Publish
LScan	Learn - Scan	CTry	Create - Try new things	SCoteach	Share - Co-teach
LTrend	Learn - Identify Trends	CInnovate	Create - Innovate	SModel	Share - Model
LHypothesise	Learn - Hypothesise	CImplement	Create - Implement	SGuide	Share - Guide
LResearch	Learn - Research	CReflect	Create - Reflect	SFback	Share - Feedback
LReflect	Learn - Reflect			SReflect	Share - Reflect