Preparing for Term 4 - time to reflect

A neat aspect of our blog posts is the use of our labels. This I have used to reflect with in preparation for term 4. Create continues to be a focus we talk about with colleagues, we create and share whether successful or not so.

On clicking on my labels from the 'Create' area we can look at what I've tried out and discovered. It's also very helpful to ensure I start off where I left off!

CReflect - click to see related posts

Focus of most of my reflections have been on my use of language in maths.  In this section key phrases are important for me to be mindful of in my planning.    Being 'explain ready' as a teacher AND student.    This means being prepared with the activities AND language that will promote learning.  When 'Creating' - I am promoting the correct use of mathematical terms and processes to best support my learners.

CTry - click to see related posts

What I have tried is the use of students data to empower learning.  This has proven to be successful in

1. Gaining greater buy in from learners

2. Learners are empowered and feel more in control of their results and data

3. Learners are more reflective when seeing their own data

4. Students are making comparisons and conclusions for themselves around learning and goal setting

CPlan - click to see related posts

The COL staff meeting we led prompted the following thoughts for me.  Am I sharing clear enough steps in my practice here on my blog?  Are they good enough for another teacher to pick up and work from.  If the answer is yes - then my plans are useful as a COL.  Planning for me to date needs to include what key words and phrases I will promote.  What vocab will be best support learners when having to various assessments and working with maths in day to day life.

Labels to be covered more in Create are: innovate and implement.

Staff meeting focus on COL teachers within and across community of learning

Pt England based COL teachers had the opportunity to visit the blogs of COL teachers within and across schools.   It was kicked off by a short presentation by Matt Goodwin outlining the different achievement challenges and COL teachers involved.

In our groups we had the chance to look again at the Manaiakalani model of 'Teaching as Inquiry'.

This model is very similar to that found in the NZ curriculum.   Thanks to Karen Ferguson of Tamaki College who created this graphic for us.  This format helps us to align our learn, create and share.



As a COL teacher myself it was good time to see what we have and haven't provided for collectively as COL teachers at Pt England School.   Below are some points I've made for myself to check over with myself and fellow COL teachers.   Some are already covering these things well!

• how can we present our data and findings more succinctly?
• need to ensure that we are presenting the big picture AND the little bits that make it up.  For example what we are actually doing day/week/month/term with our students in our target groups
• what have we provided for a teacher who wants to try out our ideas and processes in our achievement challenge area?
• shorten the posts!  Include better detail to support the classroom teacher.
• labels are great - when used consistently
• navigating through our blogs helpful or challenging for our audience?
• what evidence are we sharing to say things are working or not?

Manaiakalani COL teachers share teaching inquiries

 

What a great afternoon sharing alongside all CoL teachers!   We all presented in a session to showcase our inquiries at the Annual Manaiakalani Hui.  It was great to share our inquiries with a whole range of people.   The audience I shared with were from a range of places:

• old teachers friends from across the cluster dating back over 10 years!
• core education representatives
• members of the Woolf Fisher Research 
• Manaiakalani Outreach Team
• new teachers to our cluster
• members of our Manaiakalani Hackers Team 

A few standout points for me was finding out from colleagues a common goal of having students AND teachers 'Explain Ready'.  Meaning:

a. students are ready to explain how they might solve a problem in maths.  

b. they are able to interpret what a word problem is actually asking

c. the need for educators to be more aligned in the terminology

d. the need think carefully of  the style of questioning and processing we need to promote.  

e. teacher choice of language and modelling will develop mathematical understanding to the point of being able to transfer knowledge and practice into other strands and curriculum areas.

As I shared in my recent post my inquiry falls under achievement challenge #4: 

Increase the achievement of Years 7-10, in reading, writing and maths, as measured against National Standards and agreed targets

Here is the presentation I shared..  I must say it was fun setting up the 3 panelled board - really made me think about what really needed to be shared given the limited space to display.  Thanks to the Manaiakalani team for their leadership in setting up this valuable opportunity for us all.  You are very welcome to visit my professional blog to read and see more.

Preparing and refining - Manaiakalani Hui 2017

Here's sneak peak at one piece from my presentation.  Come along and find out what it's all about!  Friday 25th August, Panmure Yacht Club 2 - 4pm.

Tomorrow we get to share our COL inquiries with the whole Manaiakalani Cluster. This will be taking place at the Panmure Yacht Club. Opportunities to share in such forums prompts to check and look again at the components that make up your teaching inquiry.

The team I am in are targeting the '#4 Achievement Challenge' which reads:
4. Increase the achievement of Years 7-10, in reading, writing and maths, as measured against National Standards and agreed targets.

My focus is specifically maths with a target group of learners who are sitting below the national standard, combination of boys and girls, year 7 and 8.   Our COL team for this particular achievement challenge are going to use the following headings to organise our presentation.

• What the inquiry is about
• Hunches
• Actions taken
• Successes
• Failures or setbacks
• Changes in the learning 
• Changes in our practice

I'm looking forward to being there the whole day where we will hear from our MIT Spark teachers, our student ambassadors from every school in the cluster, feedback from WF Researchers team and more.    Always a valuable time of learning and reflecting.  Kia Manuia!

Teacher talk is so important! Being 'explain ready'.

This afternoon was time well spent with Jo Knox and colleagues from year 5 through to 8.   The focus for our group PD was on the teaching and learning of fractions - ratios and proportion.   As the workshop unfolded it highlighted the following

- How we set problems to solve
- How we phrase our prompts and questions
- Which parts of a word problem to we spend time on teaching
- Which parts are redundant - not useful

This links to what I have found in parts of my inquiry.  The teacher's ability to articulate mathematical operations through to problem solving is significant in the learner's ability to advance in maths.   Where a teacher creates tasks effectively, use of correct terminology and mindfulness of scenarios learners may come up with - the thinking process of students is set up with greater stability.  The thinking process taken will prompt a transfer of skills across strands.  

Again I find myself reflecting on my own methods of setting up maths learning.  The language and phrases I use in maths to prompt the solving of various maths problems.   Jo Knox referred to the basics of how we describe fractions - what works and doesn't.   The part that doesn't work - showed thinking processes that were very limited and did not support the transfer of knowledge into other strands.   PD for myself - get explain ready for whatever scenarios students come up with in their efforts to problem solve.

The following are some helpful tips from Jo Knox's session.

• Some students in ratios use additive - stage 6
• We want to move into multiplicative
• ‘Launch’ of question. Ensure all students have access to understand the question. It’s not meant to trip up students. Explain different parts to allow students access to the question.
• Whatever your problem area. Do a 5 minutes piece with class daily. Maths wall could show the processes you want to teach.  
• Who can find keywords? etc
• Where are the key numbers?
• Redundant? Who can find words that are NOT useful
• Do exercise to picture what you’re trying to ask WITHOUT numbers. E.g. ‘I have money in this pocket and some in this one...how much do I have’. 
• Students will understand what operations you’re after BEFORE dealing with the numbers.

COL - my process so far

Let's walk it through:
1. Identify the challenge: acceleration of maths in year 7 - 10
2. HOW?   Empower students by showing them their data 
(Lenva & Jo)
3. Process: 
a. Identify areas of success / difficulty
b. Identify the WHY it was difficult 
c. Learn how to work through this - solve it!
4. Capture evidence of HOW to solve the problem 
5. Share providing evidence AND teach the next student!
Below is an example of student carrying out numbers 6 and 7.  Go here to see more from Hosea.


This week we have been learning to use 'screencastify'.  This was to explore the use of 'Screencastify' to explain how I/we problem solve.

 Can you see how I worked this problem out? Give me feedback if you think there's something else I could have added in my speech or screen capture.

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

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

Data - our comparisons from February to April 2017

We've just completed a second round of IKAN tests where we gather a snapshot of the different areas in number.   The students in the target group along with their peers have shown an increase in enthusiasm in learning.  I have noticed an increase in questioning and discussion around what methods they use to problem solve.

In listening to the IKAN's this second time around I picked up again on more learning goals for myself as a teacher.  The terms and phrases I have used have not been as effective as I'd hoped.

Place value was the initial focus for the target group.  However when you observe the data below you will see that it still is the weakest of all areas in number.   There was shift for students - mostly in other areas.

This lack in shift I believe is from not extending the phrases used to support my learners.  For example in the number 789, how many tens are there?  I was accepting '8'.  Whereas the question is actually asking 'How many tens are there in the WHOLE number' which is 78.

My next goal is to be more accurate with my questioning in maths to ensure the correct terminology is used. This will lead me into teaching how to transfer this knowledge of mathematical terminology in problem solving further than place value.

Our team discussions on maths inquiries at Pt England revealed more to me.  I noticed that around the room - especially with place value, there was some inconsistencies too.  A school focus we could well do with is aligning the terminology we use - especially around place value as it is a weakness across the levels.

I am carrying out gloss tests now with this group.  I will share this data here soon.

KEY: blue February IKAN, red April IKAN
Student C made the most progress in all areas - except place value.

You are very welcome to add link in a comment that could support my inquiry of using data to support learners.  I'd love to try out more ideas around 'Place Value Nested', which has been highlighted as something I have overlooked in teaching PV.

NUMBER SEQUENCE

FRACTIONS

PLACE VALUE

BASIC FACTS

The WHY of this inquiry

Below you will see items posted earlier this month.  What I have not stated clearly enough was the 'WHY' behind this inquiry.

WHY???
I have reflected upon feedback via our PAT, IKAN, small group observations, Gloss results also research across the cluster.  It has been found that the rate of acceleration and achievement is slower when hitting year 7 - 10.
*This is the reason for my selection of inquiry - maths for learners in year 7 and 8 in my target group to see if I can shift achievement through using close examination of their results WITH the student.

My inquiry to use data to empower learners is currently my hypothesis to make learners in this age group aware of what they are actually achieving.  In this knowledge be more driven and focused when presented with ongoing maths tasks that target the areas needing development.

From previous post:
Go to this link to find out more detail about my COL inquiry.   The curriculum area it sits in is maths.

Understand the data - what knowledge to I need?

What are we up to?  
The following is my  action plan:

On completion of our most recent IKAN and PAT maths assessments students have and will be 

1. analysing their personal data (what do the lines, numbers and dots mean?)

2. can explain their strengths and weaknesses (dialogic and  text/symbols in blog post)

3. learner access any time to individual sets of data to help set learning goal.   Goal is specific for target strand, determined by analysis in step 1.

Check - we have analysed our IKAN data and found our weakest strand as a group is place value.    Since this time we have spent four robust sessions of the learning of place value with a variety of resources.  

Check: do my students understand the following of the place value strand - what is the question actually asking?  What knowledge do I need?

What the place value strand in IKan actually translates to:

	Q5 and Q6 How many 10ʼs in a number or what is the number made up of this many 10ʼs to 100	Q5 and Q6 How many 10ʼs in a number or what is the number made up of this many 10ʼs into 100ʼs. Or round to the nearest 10	Q5 How many 100ʼs in a number Q6 How many tenths in a number. Or round a decimal to the nearest whole number.	Q3 and Q4 Biggest or smallest decimal Q5 How many hundredths in a number	Q3 and 4 Decimal knowledge of 10ths, 100ths, 1000ths Q5 and Q6 Converting fractions, decimals and %

COL inquiry focus - if the previous post was too wordy!

 Go to this link to find out more detail about my COL inquiry.   The curriculum area it sits in is maths.