Map it out

Math inquiry
*Issue: breaking things right down - work out the building blocks are!  Gift and practice the necessary strategies and knowledge.
*Aim?  Map out clearly the path the target learners need  to become competent in their weaker areas of number.
* How?    Planning with the target learners and experts I have access to on our staff.  This will include use of wall displays that mark out 'Where we are' and 'Where we need to get to'.   Use of student knowledge IKAN forms.  Slow down and provide opportunities to 'show off' this knowledge!

A new year brings new students and another round of enthusiastic learners.   My maths class has these learners in all groups.   Where things are explained carefully the students are able to make connections and bring their understanding to the task at hand.

Most recently we sat an IKAN test - across classes in team 5.  These produced some interesting results which had teachers and students talking a lot!   I overheard reasons as to why some thought they did well and not so.   Some as simple as writing the answers across rather than down the columns.  Others - just found it too hard after a certain stage.   The voice and slides moved too quickly etc.

This was a great opportunity to set some individual and group goals.   My target group decided that we'd tackle one of our weakest strands as shown in the IKAN test - place value.  Our plan is to work on the next area of weakness until we are confident in all areas of number, ready to re-test through another IKAN in week 10.

An extra support will be that home learning will target the number strand also.

Beyond 9 - 3, Spark-MIT 2017 Teachers

Today we met as the 2017 Spark-MIT 2017 teacher group. 8 teachers on a mission to inquire into a range of things that impact achievement for our learners. We shared ideas that connected to the Manaiakalani pedagogy that need to have visible and ubiquitous learning, strong learner agency and connectedness to grow knowledge. 


My focus for Spark-MIT inquiry:
 I propose to explore home learning for year 7 & 8 students.  How can we support ubiquitous learning to become a daily practice from school to home?   Manaiakalani encourages and supports expanding the hours of learning beyond the start and end bell of the school day.  Are our students taking advantage of this open all hours access to their learning? What can we do at school to motivate and maintain this opportunity to accelerate achievement?

 Data Gathered: Just a start... A survey completed by learners in team 5 - year 7 and 8 learners this month found the following stats. *Note these are only some of the questions I asked. It's helped me to see that first issue to resolve would be the access issue. While internet is available at home - over 80% - it didn't translate to students having actual access to it via a device. Over 50% do not take netbooks home - why is this? Another factor - students have voiced the desire for more parent help. How can we support this? How can we teach around the use of resources be it online or in the form of whanau. I'm looking forward to finding out and supporting this to happen and gaining more ideas from this Spark-MIT group who I can see are a rich resource to have. Thanks for today Dorothy@Manaiakalani and Lynne@Spark Foundation for what has been a great day of learning and professional development.