Mathematical Thinking Project - University of Waikato

Today I had the opportunity to participate in conversations revolving around what mathematical thinking is needed for beginning teachers in their first two years of teaching. It was a really rewarding experience, as I got to chat with other beginning teachers and listen to their thoughts and things they had learnt/discovered this year in their teaching. This experience brought about questions, such as:

- How can we incorporate mathematical thinking/skills into other areas of the curriculum effectively?
- How can we explicitly model/make students aware that they are using maths during these learning experiences?
- What are the benefits of cross curricular learning experiences in regards to our assessment of data/making links to the National Standards? How can we use the information to make judgements of progress in our individual students?
- What is the most effective means of providing feedback during math experiences, so that students may reflect on their learning?
- How can we ensure that students know where they are at with their mathematics learning and create student agency within the classroom?

Here is the presentation that Hayley (a fellow BT) and I put together for this afternoon's professional conversation.

Staff Meeting - Gail Loane - Wednesday 24th August 2016

Andrew Jackson piece

- Use of the 5 senses

- Description - Factual

- No personal response/opinion

Leaf Description

Thin veins stretch out connecting the holey flesh.

Mouldy brown and green in colour.

Old and fragile, it looks as if it could fall apart at the slightest touch.

Dirt clings to it's skin.

Eco-literacy

- Connect with the simple

- What are the possibilities to get children quickly writing?

- Create a challenge for them e.g. try not to use 'I' or 'my'

Look at a piece of student writing and decide what can be improved/what needs to be worked on and then think about how this can be incorporated into your teaching.

Murray Gadd - Research on writing

What makes teachers effective? - Three most important are highlighted.

- Expectations - Vision of achievement - How is this communicated to the students?

- Learning Goals - What do teachers think about when they create goals for/with students?

- Learning Tasks - How are they set up? Specific tasks for specific learning.

- Direct instruction - Explicit teaching.

- Responding to students work - Feedback/feedforward - Is it clear?

- Motivating and challenging learners

- Organisation and management - Differentiation - If it is a whole-class lesson aim for 100% student engagement/need.

- Self-regulation - Actions the teachers take to give students a sense of ownership/responsibility.

Developing student agency - use of the book 'Choice Words'

- Learning intentions are too broad - stick to using a learning focus for each lesson.

Memoir - Model - Piano Rock by Gavin Bishop

Give background to hook the students in.

- Make them aware that there is a person behind the model.

Read for meaning - picture aids can be used to ensure 100% understanding from all students.

Use of visual contrast - use colouring pencils to colour for each paragraph - look at what colour each paragraph makes you feel.

Make students aware of the deliberate choices that author's make - Allow them to discover this.

Pick one sentence for students to imitate, e.g. The creek, white with ice, had patches of black where someone before me had...

(white with ice = adjectival phrase)

Plan: Students to brainstorm 4 nouns e.g. window, duvet, light, floor.

- Come up with a full sentence before they move away to write independently.

Success Criteria: Include one sentence with a noun and a descriptor after the noun.

Ensure to teach all different types of writing:

- Shared

- Guided

- Independent

- Collaborative

Gail Loane Observation - Wednesday 24th August 2016

Learning I took away from these experiences:

 - Although I was trying to keep things simple - I can make them simpler! When using a model text means that this will need to be unpacked for meaning with the students before moving on to the revision process.

- Use more of the students' writing when teaching skills; this provides student agency - they have purpose and meaning behind editing or reshaping the texts, as it is their own work and can help them to improve their writing - This was evident in my session and could have formed the basis of the whole lesson.

- Continuing with student agency, Gail discussed leaving room for students to reflect and ponder about the texts themselves, I can do this by practicing what kinds of language I use when wanting them to think about texts more in depth, making sure that my questioning is leading them toward learning and finding out - Practising language that leads the students to discover is one of my goals for my teaching.

- I need to discover how to lead ALL of my students into experiencing the process in which we are exploring; making sure that they are all with me in that moment and are ready to share reflect and work - Aim for 100% engagement from all students.

- Embedding the skills (such as editing and crafting) into daily writing/helping circle. I am yet to introduce a proper helping circle in class. I feel that this would be a very beneficial part of each literacy session for my students, so I look forward to working on this further.

Attitude Performance - Friendship Factor/Tackling Technology - Thursday 18th August 2016

Today we had the pleasure of meeting Liz from Attitude.

Attitude is an organisation that is:

"Dedicated to equipping teenagers with the information and skills they need to negotiate the adolescent years and build meaningful lives."

Liz used humour to capture our attention and share key messages about quality friendships, bullying, and our digital footprints. The information that was presented to our students was crucial at their age level. This is information that we as teachers inform them repeatedly, however it is important that the students hear this from other sources.

You can find more information about Attitude and their strategies to equip young people with life skills here:

PYP New Zealand Networking Day - Glendowie Primary School

A look at exhibition in action

Worthwhile Professional Development

Examples of Mathematics rich tasks and the Learner Profile and Attitudes in action

Creating authentic action - Follow the frog

Staff Meeting - E-Portfolios - Tuesday 16th August 2016

Professional Readings - Academic honesty in the IB educational context

 After a discussion in our staff meeting this afternoon for exhibition about Academic honesty, I went away and did some research about this topic. Personally I had never heard of this term before and so was interested to find out what this meant for myself and my students.