Monitoring and recording - Part 2

 

Monitoring and Recording - Part 1

 This week is one of our check-point weeks where we gather information, evidence, and reflect on what we have to show what we were aiming for at the start of our inquiry.

This is what I have so far. I've used my hunches as a starting point and back-tracked to find the evidence that would support what I'd initially set out to do. What I've discovered is that I need to ensure that I gather more concrete evidence as I teach. Take a snapshot of the group I'm working with, as well as student work or independent work they are doing.

Here are some 'before' the intervention, and 'after' shots I have so far.

Professional Readings

 1. Using Concrete Manipulatives in Mathematical Instruction

Using manipulatives has been my main hunch as to why a lot of my students are 'stuck' at the Year 5-6 level. Manipulatives in the education scene is defined as "physical objects that are used as teaching tools to engage students in the hands-on learning of mathematics". We've all read about the different variations to an approach to teaching mathematics, this reading talks about the Concrete, Representational, Abstract (CRA instruction as a process for teaching and learning mathematical concepts. CRA instruction allows students to make associations from one stage of the process to the next. My takeaway from this reading was to re-affirm my hunch and that no matter what level my students were operating at, we still needed to take things back to the manipulatives levels when teaching any new mathematical concepts.

2. What do culturally diverse children in New Zealand value most for their mathematics learning?

I decided to take up this reading after being able to experience using the DMIC (Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities) approach and how it was rolling out in our schools. With our school being predominantly Maori and Pasifika, I believed this to be good paper to help support my understandings for what would be most helpful for our learners. 

This reading focused on student values, and that when values are acknowledged in the mathematics classroom, there are significant benefits. It was also useful to read this as it was using a Year 7/8 class in NZ.

Hypothesis/Hunches

One of our PD sessions was a really helpful talanoa within our smaller groups. We got to share 3 hunches we had with the group. Our group was then able to contribute ideas or add onto what they thought our hunches would lead to.

We used a template/talking frame like this - 

How to formulate? The simplest way is to use this form: if...then…

“If I encourage my students to write for real reasons, then they will be motivated to write.”

“If I focus on extending their 'on-task' behaviour with strategies to manage themselves then they will improve their writing.”

“An emphasis on behavioural and cognitive engagement as well as teaching social skills will enhance my students’ ability to focus and increase their writing skills.”

Using this talking/thinking frame, were my 3 hunches:

1. If I use materials then students will be able to image sets of numbers. 

2. If I use more warm-ups/games at the start of lessons it will hook students into the learning.

3. If I mix up between book work, slides, and hands on activities, then students can grasp concepts better.

One suggestion from my group was: If I alternate doable create tasks then students would be able to demonstrate their learnt skill.

I am very thankful to my group for prompting new thoughts and ideas to trial in class and also encouraging us in our inquiry process.

Student Profiling

As a continuation of my inquiry breakdown - This blog post will be covering who my target students are. 

I have 8 students whom I have chosen as my target group for this particular inquiry. They are made up of 2 Year 8s and 6 Year 7s. 5 females and 3 males. 

The following slides outline parts of my Student Profile I have covered thus far. The first slide are my baseline data or preliminary findings which I will explain in more detail later on in my inquiry. The next slides are made up of a student survey which I conducted on the whole class through a Google form. My last slide are my own observations on what behaviours I've noticed during small group and class time around the subject of maths.

Sharing my Inquiry with PES staff

 Yesterday, I had the opportunity to present my inquiry with my staff at PES. I shared a break down of the steps I've taken so far, and to share more of what my Across Schools CoL role is all about.

Some feedback I've received from staff  was that my break down of student profile was very helpful as a starting point for them. Another feedback was identifying the specific aspect in Maths that I'm working on helped to narrow things down for them as well. Overall, I look forward to getting my series of blog posts up. 

Inquiry focus 2024: Part 1

Sharing my inquiry focus at this point in time will be done in 2 parts. This is due to the fact that after some hard hours of delving into data as a cohort and year groups of year 7 and 8 students at PES, it has NOT supported my initial hunches or observations in class this 1st half of Term 1. That was definitely an 'interesting' and confusing find for me, but here is a break down so far.

Learning Focus: Mathematics

Why mathematics? My automatic go to for inquiry focus over the last few years have been reading. This is due to a high number of students in Year 7 and 8 reading 4+ years behind their expected reading age. Our end of year data from 2023 supported this as well as cluster and school data from Ed Potential. 

However, upon discussions with our Team 5 teachers (5 of us all teaching Y7/8 at PES - 31 students per class), the whole team were all focussing on reading for their inquiry and had agreed to feed back to our group their findings as well things they are implementing in their classes. So because of this, I have decided to switch my focus to Maths, so we could share something for Maths with the team as well.

Along with this, MPI is set to start for Manaiakalani and would support this inquiry and findings as well. 

So going along with this, we've has many discussions in our team about making use of materials in our daily teachings of maths lessons this year. This is a follow on from our PD sessions with Manaiakalani Maths facilitator - Fiona Fox at the start of the year. 

Using this as a starting point, I used my first few CoL release days to make resources so my whole team could start with resources ready to go in their classes. 

What we discovered in our team meetings, was that a lot of our students struggled with 'imaging'. They could manipulate numbers in their heads based on their basic place values knowledge, but when working with materials, and having to cover big number properties, students found this part hard to do or grasp this concept. This was a common theme across our team of teachers.

After all our PAT testing was done, I decided to collate our data and back track the same group of students from the start of 2023 to the start of 2024. Here are my findings below. It actually showed a shift to the right with a bell distribution curve looking better this start of the year in comparison to 2023.

Upon seeing this, I took my findings to our Acting Principal Toni Nua, who has helped advise me on my next steps. My next steps will be to set up an asttle test for this same group of students and see if we get the same results.