Link to Inquiry Document

Rotations now more purposeful.

The rotations I have set up are working well. Children are working in small mixed ability groups for rotations and I am happy with the way they are going. Children are engaged with these learning activities. When I have parent help I get them to rove and ensure games and activities are being done correctly.

Reading with Team at Team Meeting

Questions from the team.

What sort of creative activities/hands on activities could we have for Maths?

Everyone to come with something creative around Number for next meeting.

Reading link: http://catlintucker.com/2016/05/shake-up-station-rotation/

http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/26/why-kids-need-to-move-touch-and-experience-to-learn/

During the holidays I made up these boxes. They consist of practise games that the children are familiar with or mostly familiar with. Many are aimed at maintenence of basic facts and patterning, some strand work which we did in the previous term and place value.

Differentiated Learning. Children are partnered in small groups of three. These groups consist of two children working at Stage 4 and one at Stage 2/3. The reason I have done this is to get the upper stages to be able to support the lower stage child. If I placed all the 2/3 children together many of the tasks would be unaccessible independently. My top group who are working at Stage five have their own boxes and these children have games and practise which is appropriate to the stage they are working at. I have tried to included as many "hands on" activities as possible as this age group responds well to these.

Put here to add to my newly developed planning sheets (From Michigan University's Connected Maths Project)

Anticipating

In the Anticipating phase, the teacher predicts during planning how students will respond to a particular mathematic task. He or she considers possible alternative strategies that students may use, as well as potential misconceptions that may surface.

Monitoring

Monitoring occurs as the teacher circulates during the Explore of the lesson in a CMP classroom. He or she listens to student discussions while asking clarifying questions and posing new challenges.

Selecting

This Selecting phase involves choosing the strategies for students that occur during the Explore that will best illustrate and promote the desired understanding of the Focus Question.

Sequencing

In Sequencing, before the Summarize, the teacher plans which students will share their thinking, and in what order, so as to maximize the quality of the discussion.

Connecting

Finally, the Connecting practice which occurs during the Summarize involves posing questions that enable students to understand and use each other’s strategies, and to connect the Problem’s Big Idea to previous learning. Connecting practice may also foreshadow future learning.

Science Daily Reading

In our collaborative group we discussed board games and how these may or may not be helpful in learning to count on. This is an interesting reading which could have an effect on my lower students, however, as the article says it is important for children to be counting in a certain way. I will need to ensure I do the teaching around how to play this game and also maybe get one of my parent helps to ensure they monitor the children while they play.

Charlotte Wilkinson on NZ Teachers Facebook Page

"Teach practice review - the lesson type research has shown the least impact in student learning. I can understand why as the planning component of the numeracy project was ridiculous."

I felt that teachers were basically planning for up to three different maths lessons every day - which should involve considering the learning outcomes. Most plans I have seen, including the plans from NZ Maths are generic plans based on numeracy stages not the actual learning needs of the students. Most are planning for doing and not planning for learning. Some schools have had unit plans but most appeared to be daily planning from a long term coverage plan and generally stated what the students would be doing ie the activity and not what the expected outcome from a lesson or series of lesson would be. Few plans contained reflective comments. All changed after I had been working with them - one lesson plan differentiated with a range of lesson types and a range of grouping dependent on the learning.and the general comments were how much easier the planning became.

Orchestrating Productive Mathematical Discussions

Watching this video has consolidated what we have been doing for our PD for the last 15 months I am co-leading this PD with a colleague and the support of our PD providers. Changing year levels has go me really thinking on how the five practices can be applied to very young children. Much more support is required from the teacher to help children develop their thinking and to be able to verbalise thier ideas at this age. I am working hard to have children listen carefully to one another to help develop their Mathematical ideas.