Student efficacy and achievement relate!

1. students see someone like them showing other students their work -  explaining how they solved a problem.

In my research for good practice in raising achievement in maths came across an article titled 'Assessing students’ maths self efficacy and achievement' by LINDA BONNE AND ELLIOT LAWES.

I found this very interesting and it confirmed what I have heard in my Pt England Inquiry group as well as COL within schools group.    Something most if not all teacher believe to be key to engaging students so that we can deal with the detail in teaching and learning.  This being the level of confidence or in this case self efficacy in maths.

What do researchers say self efficacy is?
s.1 Self-efficacy can be thought of as part of the key competency, managing self, which is “associated with self-motivation, a ‘can-do’ attitude, and with students seeing themselves as capable learners” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 12). 

One of the leaders in self-efficacy research and theory development, Albert Bandura, described self-efficacy as: people’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances. It is concerned not with the skills one has but with judgments of what one can do with whatever skills one possesses. (Bandura, 1986, p. 391)

Good practice for effective teachers I believe is the making sure students feel safe and capable of learning in your classroom.  This promoting self efficacy for our students.  When reading further through the article, there was provision of a list of practices that would promote self efficacy.  I believe that using the screencastify app will support point no.1, 3, 6 and 7.   Those points left out I imagine could be catered for in timely feedback from the teacher, student peers and whanau.

 A recent New Zealand study (described in Bonne & Johnston, 2016), based on work by Siegle and McCoach (2007) and Schunk and Hanson (1985), suggested that students’ self-efficacy is likely to be strengthened when: 

1. students see someone like them showing the rest of the class their maths work, or explaining how they solved a problem 
2. students have strategies for coping when learning is difficult, and when they make mistakes or fail 3. students know what their learning goals are, and understand what they need to do to achieve their goals 
4. teachers give students feedback about the progress they are making towards their learning goals, and let them know what they need to do next to help them achieve their goals 
5. teachers encourage students to reflect on the role of effort in their learning, and—when appropriate—prompt students to attribute failure to insufficient effort, and encourage them to try harder and persevere when learning is difficult 
6. students’ attention is drawn to the specific skills they have developed 
7. students are enabled to develop internal standards for evaluating their own outcomes, rather than to rank themselves in comparison to others 
8. if a teacher—or a parent—found maths difficult when they were at school, then rather than commiserate with students, they challenge students to improve their maths—expect them to succeed, and give them the support they need to do so.

Explain ready as students - next steps.

Graeme Aitken: Collaborative Teaching as Inquiry Image from collaborative inquiry presentation given to school leaders at Manaiakalani Hui Term 2.

As the term kicks off I've used this inquiry flow chart to focus myself on what the next part of my inquiry will be. You open the lid with investigation from your hunch, you may find you were right OR close, or maybe - that the issue is something else!

The start of my inquiry?

Using student data WITH students to support achievement in maths. What has unfolded is a careful selection of words and phrases from me as a teacher to model how we interpret our data from formative assessments so far. These being gloss, IKAN test and small group work.

On expecting students to articulate back to me via blog posts and conversations I have picked up that the students were able to identify the strand area of weakness. This was hugely motivational and built confidence in a number of nervous students. However the next problem became obvious. It's the next level of detail we are actually after! So if you say - 'Proportions and Ratios' is the area of weakness in number - what IN proportions and ratios is the problem area. What are the building blocks that lead me into understanding fractions (proportions) and then ratios? Students goal: to be 'Explain Ready'. Using collaborative teaching inquiry model from Graeme Aitken I have come up with the following to guide me through the next steps for my inquiry.

Inquiry that Hannah West shared in our Pt England School inquiry groups.   Thanks Hannah for your great ideas around screencast!    Will show what we come up with soon!

Immersion Assembly Term 3

This week's post comes to us from Angelo who will share with you what our first day of term was like. It's always a special time at PES - first day of any term! Read on!

It was the first day of school the immersion assembly was normal, until the lights turned off and little space ship came flying through the middle of the hall and landed on the center of the stage.

everybody was curious of what's in then suddenly two alien bursted out of nowhere, and started talking, before I could catch my breath on what's happening. Two brave souldier bursted out from hiding and defeated the two aliens with there lightsabers. then they stood up and took a bow lucky it was a act I was ready to run. Mr burt came out and said “give a round of applause for that amazing act”.

Team one played a movie about going to space in a flying car. Then it was time for team two they also played a movie but there movie was a song about space. Team three played a movie about time. Team four played a movie about what planet where gonna live on after the earth. Then the best group team five they sang a song about the moon and solar system.

The most interesting and informative item was team five. they explained how all natural resources were running out and people were going to have to find a new planet. They also explained how we failed to protect and look after earth.

I think team five was the most entertaining because i've never seen my teachers dance like how they did on the day. I also never expected mrs judd's voice to be that amazing but the funny dance moves from mrs tele'a is what made it all stand out.

This term I am looking forward to having lots of fun learning about how the tides affect the tide and also what planet we're gonna live on next. Another task i'm look forward to is how the solar system work and how planet earth effects it.

'Explain Ready' with OTJ's.

Year 7 & 8 had a busy end to the term with their technology expo, gloss and running records, parent interviews and more! In the space of reporting to parents it is necessary to be 'explain ready' with various pieces of data and knowledge in the area of maths. Maths was our selected curriculum focus for our parent interviews. Some parents found this odd as in the past 2 years we have reported as home class and literacy teachers. Given the lower numbers of parents who attended most ended up visiting both their child's literacy AND maths teachers. So it was a win win situation!

 In reporting about maths this prompted me to look very closely at what the students understood to be their strengths and weaknesses. Further to this to offer my advice as to what needs to happen next in their learning. Regardless of my ability in this teaching area parents hold us - the teacher - in a high position of authority and knowledge.   Being well prepared with explanations of OTJ and next steps are a priority when reporting to both parents and students.

 My target group findings after gloss in May: 
1. A common theme for students in my target group is the need to develop skills to interpret word problems. To understand what the question is actually asking in terms of mathematical operations and the sequence in which to work the task out. An example of word problem that stumped students in this target group: 24 pegs, 2 pegs used to hang out 1 piece of clothing. How many pieces of clothing can you hang out? Approximately 2/3 of group were stumped. When I did the work of interpreting this to the equation '24 ÷ 2 = ?' students immediately answered correctly '12'.

 2. Secondly there was an obvious need to develop their basic knowledge around ratios and proportions. This stood out as the lower strand in the gloss test.

These are two areas I will target with the group in the new term as well as their home learning for the week.