Putting the zing into maths

I was lucky enough to attend a maths course that was focussing on the approaches to teaching mathematics.

I have always had a nagging feeling in the back of my head that at times I don't teach maths to the best of my ability. The reason behind this is because I was dropped into a classroom with no training in this math curriculum.  I have basically read the books, asked the questions and tried to get my head around what I am supposed to do. But I always wondered if I was doing it the right way.

Thankfully this course gave me that sense of relief that I have been doing the majority correct - ( haven't yet got my head around modelling books!).

This course focussed on the teaching of maintenances in maths which I still can't get out of the habit of calling starters.

What I found interesting was that a lot of teachers don't teach this or find it hard to set differentiated activities for the students. This is something that was expected from my previous school so is something I have never found difficult to do.

Courses like these are always great to go on as they remind you of old activities you have forgotten about and new ones to learn. This course also focussed on developing students mathematical discussion and encouraged the use of literacy in the lesson. Which I loved!

Takeaways for me were:

• Making sure that there were 'I can" statements for each stages and examples of this so students can see the progression, where they are at and what they need to do to get to the next stage.

One great idea was to use these statements as a maintenance activity. Either discussing what it meant or getting students to show you what they understand the statements to mean.

• Are we pulling out our information from our data?

What does your data say about your students? Do you re visit what they still don't understand? Does your teaching reflect your data? Use maintenance to re visit this and always differentiate to meet the needs of your students even those at the same stages.

• Don't teach Monday to Friday instead it should be Day 1 to Day 5 with the fifth day having a literacy focus.

Use picture books to communicate mathematical knowledge and learning, word problems or even get students to create their own maths story. As long as it is filled with language.

This is something I have tried hard to do each week. I noticed a lot of the teaching of mathematical was number based and when we were assessing the students we asked children questions based on a word problem/story which totally threw them.  One thing I have been trialling this week is the microphone on the active board. Each day I have put up a new picture up that they need to turn into a multiplication story.

• The Knowledge is important.

You don't always have to teach the strategies. If the strategy is not there then in most cases it is because the knowledge is not secure. Place value, place value, place value- students need a good understanding of this. Having moved to a lower stage in maths this is something I have learn this year. A lot of the time I am teaching the knowledge as my students don't have this understanding yet.

• Hands on

Show it , draw it, model it using as many different resources so students understand what the numbers means.
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Use dienes blocks, money, write it, how many groups of?

What do I want to work on myself?
Get into the habit of using modelling books. I use a working wall and differentiate the activities by placing (big) sheets of paper around the room. I am (slowly) beginning to see the benefits of these books now.

• Rotations.

I haven't really been doing different rotation groups this term. This is because at times I can have three teachers in the room and with a class of 18 we tend to have our little groups set already.

• What I want to try is the idea of

Concept- small group teaching with the teacher
Practise- using the modelling book with set questions (six at the most) and a maths buddy to work with
Application- independently solve problems that also incorporate word based problems.

This is something I have done in the past but again let slip this term mainly because most of my students struggled to do any work independently and it has taken me a long time to set up/make resources that cater for this level.