Putting PD into practice - Share/Model/Record

One of the 'gems' I shared in my previous post from Jo Knox's PD was how she worked her sharing time in small group situations. If one pair was sharing, another pair was modelling using materials (how that group solved their problem) and the other pair were recording it on paper. 

So I tried this out in class and it worked brilliantly! Previously, sharing time normally consists of the person(s) sharing to me but hardly anyone else in the group is listening. They are either distracted or trying to sort out their own problem ready for their time to share.

So this method of sharing is a great way to ensure that:

1. Everyone is engaged
2. You cover a triangulation of oral explanation, numbers being manipulated in an equation, and also what it looks like on hard materials. 
3. Once all 3 groups have shared, students would have been exposed to 2 or 3 different ways of solving 1 problem!

I'd encourage anyone and everyone to give this method of sharing a go. It definitely adds a much needed scaffold to the learning process.

Observing modelled lessons with Jo Knox

I have really enjoyed and found all our PD sessions with Jo Knox very valuable and applicable in the classroom. Today, Team 5 have been fortunate enough to observe 2 modelled sessions using a stage E6-6 group and a stage 7 group of students. Our area of need we asked to be addressed was how to deliver a lesson around finding decimal equivalents for fractions (e.g. expressing 1/5, 3/4, 1/3 as a decimal) using decipipes as materials.

There were so many treasures and learning points I took away from our sessions that I've tried to condense it down to 5 main points that I hope you will also find useful. 

1. Sharing/Co-constructing the WALT at the end of the lesson

As we observed Jo, we noticed that both times, at the end of the lesson she closed it off by encouraging the students to verbalise (exactly as they've been doing all session) what they have been doing. The first group had some trouble keeping the vocabulary consistent when explaining what they been trying to achieve. But the second group (Stage 7 group) were able to say exactly what they were doing. "We are learning to add decimals by taking some off one number and add it to the other to make whole numbers." I found this quite a good change of practice and as long as I have it clear in my head where I'm wanting the lesson to go, con-constructing the WALT at the end of the lesson is a great way to end off a lesson.

2. Decipipes magic

Every class needs them! They are the perfect tool when dealing with fractions, decimals and place values with numbers less than one. I watched students experimenting with tenths, finding out how many tenths you needed to make one whole. Students also used decipipes to show how a half and and quarter is written as a decimal as the only columns on the place value houses are 1/10, 1/00 and 1/000. Students used tenths decipipes to find a half, then needed the hundredths decipipes when they were trying to show a 1/4. This made it so much easier to record as they could clearly see they had 2 tenths pipes, and 5 hundredths pipes which looks like 0.25 = 1/4.

3. Teaching Model
We all know the teaching model, but at times in our haste to accelerate our students, we can sometimes miss out crucial steps in ensuring students reach that 'new knowledge/strategy' you've been aiming for. I saw these steps clearly happening in Jo's lessons and students left with 'new knowledge' and understanding. Student were given the opportunity to use materials if they needed to, or work out 1.98 + 0.65 using a strategy they knew (imaging).

4. Share/ Model/ Record
I love this method of sharing! While one pair is sharing how they solved a problem, the other pair is modelling it using the materials (in this case the decipipes) and the other pair is recording what they hear (equation format). This way, it ensures everyone in the group is paying attention, participating and forming their own understanding while others are sharing. Below is a short snippet of one group sharing while the group recording is trying to understand what they did and the modelling group is moving decipipes around to show what was shared.

5. Double number line - Equivalent fractions
This was a very effective way to show equivalent fractions as you teach your group. One of the things we've been reminded to work on to expose students to fractions that are greater than 1. This double number line was the perfect way to show 1 and a half is equivalent to 3/2. This is definitely something I will be using more often with my groups.

I have much more to share but I hope this summary can be of some help to others for now. My next steps would be to try these in my lessons and video the session to see how students respond to the learning and whether the learning is embedded for them. This would also be useful watching how patient I am in a normal class setting, with wait time, and trying to encourage student to use the correct mathematical vocabulary when explaining their learning. This should be interesting!

CoL Inquiry - SHARE checklist

I will be adding to the SHARE labels more next term as I work towards the end of year goals for my target students, extension students and my maths class as a whole.

One of the areas I need to be more explicit about is the Model/Guide section as this is split into 2 separate labels in the framework.

Publish	What happened as a result of the changes? Share evidence (artefacts of student learning, DLOs) and effective strategies.	Extensions students Hands on Geometry
Co-teach	What if my plans didn’t work? Are there different approaches?Who can help me? Peer observations, video analysis of my practice.	T3 checkpoint - Staff presentation CoL teachers leading staff meeting @ Pt England
Model / Guide	How can my findings and experiences support my peers? How is this shared?	Extensions students Strand data - pre test It’s the little things that matter
Feedback / Feedforward	What are my next steps? How will I sustain effective practice? Learner feedback? New goals?	T3 - Update on target students
Reflect	“Inquiry into the teaching–learning relationship goes hand in hand with formative assessment, in the cyclical evaluation process that goes on moment by moment, day by day, and over the longer term.” Assessment-in-the-classroom/Teaching-as-inquiry	T3 - Update on target students T3 checkpoint - Staff presentation Reflection on Geometry

CoL teachers leading staff meeting @ Pt England

Monday nights staff meeting was led by our CoL teachers. We had Matt and Andrea lead the intro for the whole staff before we split up into teams and each of us 5 CoL teachers were allocated a team to lead. I was with Team 4 who are 5 teachers from years 5&6.

Team 4 were very responsive towards what I had to share and the task they were to complete. Some of the things they found interesting were: Some of the blogs they read about Maths from other schools resonated with them as it was the same situation they are experiencing in class. Another commented about now nice it was to be given PD time to read and learn from other teachers as it gives them ideas to try out in their class or triggers other ideas rather than being stuck in their own world of inquiry.
It was great to hear this feed back and feel how grateful the team felt that there are teachers who are putting themselves out there in terms of their teaching practice for others to learn from.

Thank you to Team 4 and my fellow CoL teachers for writing such reflective and detailed blog posts.

Term 3 Checkpoint - Staff Presentation

One of our roles as a CoL member is to keep our staff informed of the progress we make in our inquiry and our findings so far. Here is my presentation giving an overview about the different phases my inquiry has gone through. I also shared some of the successes I've had with my students as well as the failed attempts at trying new things.

So right now in my inquiry, I am looking at how I can provide more opportunities for 'create' activities in maths that can be completed within a reasonable amount of time. This is in the hopes that providing such opportunities would create experiences students would remember and recall the learning that went along with it.

Teaching as Inquiry 2017

“Recognising and spreading sophisticated pedagogical practice across our community so that students learn in better and more powerful ways...”

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: 

#4. Increase the achievement of Years 1-10 learners, with a focus on Years 7-10,  in maths, as measured against National Standards and agreed targets. My focus question is:

How can I accelerate students learning in maths through the teaching of number 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