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.

Effective Communicator Week 5

This week we decided to have a maths flair to communicate.

Thankfully I do these types of maths problems a lot so my class loved solving this challenge.

What am I doing wrong?

This year has been filled with a lot of challenges and once again this term has seen more challenges arise.

My biggest hurdle at the moment is maths. For the last few years I have taught Stage 6+. This year I started off teaching Stage 5+ and now I have moved down to Stage 4. I love all the learning I am doing and appreciate the fact I am getting to  know the math curriculum in more detail. What I am finding hard is my teaching and am I teaching my students in the best way possible?

The issue is these are year 3 and 4 students who (according to National Standards) should be at stage 5 by the end of their school year. We are only just starting stage 4! This doesn't bother me because...

My issue is I am beginning to feel my style of teaching isn't suitable for these students and I don't know what I can do.

Every day no matter how hard I am trying some of my students just don't get it. I feel like I have tried everything. Visual, hands on, making it fun, competitive, real life context yet in my eyes nothing seems to be working. I know a lot of people would just scoff and make a snide comment about the type of students I have in the class, no motivation, behaviour, just can't do maths. But that is not so.

I am big on reflecting and when things are not going right, I don't blame the students I blame myself.
What is it that I'm not doing right?
How can I change so that they can learn?

The answer still alludes me but hopefully...

Logical Thinkers

I will admit I am no maths buff and maybe there is an answer out there already for what I am trying to find out.

Thursday for me, means rotation day (here) where I teach a 30 minute maths lesson to all five classes in our team. As it is mixed ability and quite short, I have decided to do hands on maths that can be differentiated for all. Also I like that I can incorporate our Value this term which is Relationships and our Disposition which is Team Player into the mix with a lot of buddy and team work.

Today we looked at a problem on Nrich called Nim- 7.

While the children were playing and trying to work out strategies I sat back and listened to their conversations about the game. What surprised me the most were the children who solved it and their logical reasoning behind their answer. During our set maths lessons, I take the more able group of year 3/4’s for maths so I naturally assumed they would be the first to come up with  an answer  and be able to articulate their reasoning’s by modelling their outcomes. However, in nearly all the five classes this didn’t happen.

It was actually other children who found a solution faster. When asked a ‘What if’ question they were also able to explain the answer using what they already knew. This got me thinking about the way we teach maths. I’m not a big fan of grouping and while teaching these maths groups it reminds me why I love the diversity of different learners in a class room.

I think sometimes we miss opportunities other students can give us when we ‘box’ all the same types of learners into one class. We are inclined to think because someone knows their ‘numbers’ (and in our case it is mainly just about addition and subtraction) they are the better mathematicians.

But I also wondered if students who are more critical or logical thinkers can be disadvantaged here.  When students think critically in mathematics, they make reasoned decisions or judgments about what to do and think. In other words, students consider the criteria or grounds for a thoughtful decision and do not simply guess or apply a rule without assessing its relevance.

I began to wonder if my more able students maybe have a tendency to just apply the rule.

I don’t really know if all my muddle thinking makes sense or has any validity but today did make me think. Why was it that a lot of my students who would be in the lower groupings of our maths could see the answer to a problem a lot faster than my more able? Maybe because it was more hands on and they could visualise the answer?

Maths Outside

Sometimes when I finish a unit of maths, I tend to find or develop a mathematical scavenger hunt in the classroom. This is a fun way for me to see whether or not they have understood what we have been learning.  It allows me to listen to their conversations, thought process as well as their written work. And it is so much better than doing a test!

I tend to do ‘loop’ questions. This is where they read a question and work out the answer. Their answer will lead them to the next question and lead them back to their starting question. This way they automatically know if their question was right or wrong. It also gives me insight into how they fix/change their mistakes. And it makes students realise what mistakes their making.  

This time I decided to let them develop their own scavenger hunt. We talked about all the mathematical vocabulary that was around the room and how we could use them to create questions relating to objects inside the classroom.

We looked at a range of questioning techniques and went back through our maths book to view our next step questions, question we had asked and set questions we had worked through in our lessons. Giving us an idea of what ways we could ask a question, how to incorporate two step questions and how to make sure our questions were going to extend our thinking.

In pairs the children set off and explored the school environment to develop their questions. I set a few ‘musts’ to keep them on task. From there the students set off and got created. After a set amount of time we gathered back together and discussed ideas and thoughts.

While I had been walking around and prompting ideas, I also set some of my own questions to model with them. I develop some very simple questions and we discussed why these would not be suitable for us (aiming for stage 5/6 questions) and how we could change them to meet the criteria. I also gave them questions that met our criteria and we discussed why these were suitable.

Students then spent time editing and working through their ten questions with their partners so they meet our ‘success criteria’. Once finished the students them typed their questions and answers up. On Friday, my actual class will use them and feedback to my maths class about them.

Mark for quality not quantity

I am a BIG fan of quality marking.  I am pretty much a teacher that believes if we are expecting children to complete something in their books then we should be marking it and rewarding it with an appropriate response. Not just a ‘well done’ or ‘good’. And yes I know it is sometimes near impossible to mark work every day but then I also raise the question ‘why do we have to have written work in books every day?

There has been a big shift in the way we mark and many teachers have taken to using a whole range of methods to assess. Used properly, marking and feedback are essential tools for ensuring that children learn more effectively and understand what they are aiming for, and they can provide strategies for success and ways to move forward.

Research (‘Inside the Black Box’ Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, 1998) has shown that there has been a tendency to mark for quantity and presentation of the work, rather than for quality. We have all been victims of that red pen scrawling’ please keep your work tidy’ or ‘you must write more’. The problem is how does that help the student? What do they gain from comments like this?

 Mathematics is one area I think we undervalue quality comments. We tend to only mark these books with a tick or a cross (or a dot)? Why are we not asking student’s questions based on the lesson? Next step questions to move them on?  Solve a problem, another question to cement the learning? Ask them what their next step would be? Or a range of HOTs (higher order questions) to get them really thinking.

Children need to be given a clear idea of how to improve their work, move forward in their learning and achieve their goals. If we continue to just tick, write ‘well done’ or ‘good’ how are we as teachers moving them forward? What we need to learn to do is have manageable and effective ways of marking and provide feedback to pupils so that they can move forward in their learning. Children need to understand their achievements and know exactly what they must do next to make progress.