'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.

Screen casts that 'Explains and shows' my understanding

Following on from our staff meeting led by Dorothy Burt we had our own Pt England group inquiry session.  In this session we are invited to share and reflect on progress today with our own individual inquiries.

I will share about the findings of a colleague around the use of capturing screen casts that display a student working through a problem.  In this you will see their working out with a voiceover that is captured at the same time.

The idea I plan to implement with my target group is this very activity of having students capture their explanation of maths problems they tackle.  

Plan of action:
1. Demo working out a problem they find easy using screen capture
2. Demo working out a problem that is challenging for their maths group

I will need to support this process well with helping students to  identify specifically a problem to solve.   Also the skills needed to capture their explanation/working out well so that their example is a clear example of 'Rewindable Learning' for their peer group.

Screencastify - tutorial video

Whanau engagement a big part of solution

Whanau engagement is a fundamental part of student achievement and well being at school.   Our efforts to understand one another is significant in not only engaging students but maintaining the levels of motivation and interest from the students AND their whanau over years of schooling.

Families@PES is what we now call our 'Home school partnership' meetings.  In this post I will refer to the Families@PES night June 14th 2017.  The special focus of this meeting was achievement in maths for all our students.

Toni Nua one of our assistant principals led this evening.  Starting with the good news - any support we can offer as whanau around maths matters!  This was great as there have been some miscommunications over the years of the 'old way' not being good for our students.   Instead - it's another strategy to offer our children.   Greater to this was the fact that we all - teachers, parents and whanau need to 'talk' a lot more!  For example - when we're doing chores around home, travelling to and from shopping trips - there's so much maths talk we could be having.

I had the chance to work with parents of year 7 & 8 parents who attended this night.  I shared my findings after having completed a set of gloss tests with students.   Language is greatly lacking.  Gloss is a test that uses 'Word problems' for students to show their ability in the three following areas:
Addition and Subtraction
Multiplication and Division
Proportions and Ratios

I showed parents an example of a gloss question.  They were very interested and were keen to learn what their children face in an assessment.   I was able to explain with the test in hand the challenge our children have with interpreting word problems.
'Andrea can fit 5 basketballs into one sports bag.  How many bags will Andrea need to store 40 basketballs?'
Some students will become stuck - yet when showing them the number sentence 40÷5= they could say the answer immediately.  So how can we all help?   Heaps and heaps more 'talk'.  Gifting of language to our children is needed.  Research relating to the time some of children enter school show very low word knowledge compared to children the same age in other parts of NZ.  Let's get talking - explaining with our children!

This will be an aspect of the maths I will address with my maths class in the new term.

The evening closed with parents feeling more empowered to support their children and helpful reminders that in the busyness of home life we can plant many more words/phrases and conversations that will better support their children towards achievement in maths.   All parents left with a maths activity pack that was explained and used prior to leaving this evening.

We've since received feedback that it was a useful evening and the packs are a great help!   Another great resource in our whanau to support achievement for our tamariki.

I can understand IKAN's

Update!  In my most recent post I shared my:
Next steps for my inquiry: CREATE rubric and templates that support the following:
1. Carry out the 'SECOND' step as outlined in Jo's presentation
2. Plot results out of Spidergraph
3. Implement activities that prompt reflection on data
4. Decide WITH student what our next steps are in learning in the number strand
5. Implement support this choice in follow up activities and home learning

I have completed step 1 where my all my students were given the opportunity to sit the IKAN differently to how I have administered it.  Most steps being those that Jo in our staff PD outlined.  I have also completed step 4, students have published this on their blogs.

Process:

• Students sat in their maths groups
• All with own chromebook and earphones
• Went through the IKAN test twice over
• Marked own test with teacher and group
• Circling those answers that were 'silly mistakes'.  This meaning mistakes that were made in the haste of test setting.  They could see what they did wrong and could prove themselves by answering a similar problem.
• Scoring the stages and various domains
• Blog post results and their own reflections that explained this different process and how they felt they performed using this new process

Students have made improvements overall.  Place value has not shifted as much as I had hoped for.   It has improved for approximately half of my class - the other half achieving stage 4 at the highest which still means no progress for a some students.   Target group as displayed: 6 same level, 4 shifted upwards.    

Identify the problem:  This statement stumps majority of my class: 'How many tens are in all of the number 782?  Answer 78 or 78.2.  Students answer '8'.   I can see that my lack in variety of questioning and activities of 'All of the number'.  Time to create a task that will help embed this!!  Look below for a draft of this.

The shift in attitude and 'can do' attitude has increased positively in students feeling more ownership over their learning, conversations with each other about how they made the mistake through to how to correct have been evident when marking in our small groups.  

Creativity Embeds Learning

 Dorothy Burt led us through our staff meeting Monday May 29th. I was privileged to be part of this presentation along with other colleagues who have been using 'Creativity to embed Learning' over some years now. Sight, sound and motion were intentionally used to help students to have depth to their learning. Learning that would stick and stay! Please look through the below presentation as it covers a range of practices and beliefs we've carried out here at PES. They work! Thank you Dorothy for another inspiring session. Many good reminders of things we need to maintain and those we need to improve.

On  a personal and professional note there are some basics that classroom teachers need to put in place.   Basic structures to maintain so students have equitable access to tools that enhance and support their creativity.
1. A roster that works in rotations within class hours that has every child have access to the devices where animation, paint programs and iMovie can be accessed
2. A clear task and rubric to guide the students creation
3. A checkpoint weekly to show progress, give praise and prompts
4. An absolute doing away with the 'Creative' devices - (Apple flatscreens in our place) being used as a reward.  They are NOT - they are part of the everyday learning activities.
5. SHARE:  a showcasing of creative work on media such as PENN (School TV news network), class and individual blog, team/class viewing.
6. Feedback: Give students the chance to give feedback and reflect

Part of my teaching practice finds me role playing, singing, moving and rhyming to help my learners. This has meant my students have had the chance to reflect this in movies we've made to share our learning.    It's in these creative moments that I have witnessed first hand the embedding of their learning.  Embedding that runs deeper and wider where creativity is encouraged and expected.   Engagement high.

Spiderweb graph - students reaction

Students found this a fun activity - to plot their results from both Gloss and iKan tests.

Feedback: they felt it showed their results in a different way but did not show them anything new.

Our discussions took us again towards looking for more detail around what being say 'level' 4 in 'Add Sub' meant.  

This brought us to look at the national standards poster which outlines what students should know by the end of the year levels.

It was agreed that we needed to look again at our test papers to try and identify where/what we did and didn't understand in the assessments.

As  a teacher this resource of under 'Possible misconceptions' gives a good support to identifying what the problem actually could be.   We will be making use of this resource in the new term where we plan as a team to carry out a pre and post test for measurement and geometry.

Using assessment data for 'Staff' and 'Students'

Professional Development with Jo Knox is a great support to my teaching and students.  AND my COL inquiry even!   This particular workshop looked at using student data to empower the learner.  A good chunk of Jo's presentation broke down steps we go through with assessments such as the IKANS.

You may recall that I have been using the IKANS as a starting point for my data sharing with students.

 I carried my action plan to highlight the strongest and weakest strand from the IKANS with my target students.   A common complaint from us all was 'too fast!'.   Jo shed light on an extended approach to using the IKANS - some of which I'm happy to say I've tried too!

In the above image you will note that FIRST you mark the IKAN, SECOND you show the students the answers.   Allowing them to identify what they think were 'silly mistakes' for themselves.   Students are then allowed to complete these questions and have them marked as correct.

This SECOND part I only carried out partially in showing the students the 'knowledge' they needed to be correct rather than letting them first scan to see what they could get right.    Also note here - we are actually extending the test time - further than the fast screen flashes they experience in test time.

Formative assessment: PAT, IKANS and GLOSS.   How do our students see these results?  Often one piece at a time.  A time I bring them together to date is when I am trying to make an OTJ for upcoming reporting season - mid year summary to prompt my next steps.   Jo suggests to use a 'Spidergraph' (slide 14 in presentation below) to show both GloSS and IKAN.   This in itself will be informative for students and surely motivate them to keep on with their learning sessions.  Empowering students by using their own data.


Next steps for my inquiry: CREATE rubric and templates that support the following:
1. Carry out the 'SECOND' step as outlined in Jo's presentation
2. Plot results out of Spidergraph
3. Implement activities that prompt reflection on data
4. Decide WITH student what our next steps are in learning in the number strand
5. Implement support this choice in follow up activities and home learning