Analysis of my teaching as inquiry this year

 How do mathematical practices in DMIC support learner identities in Maths?

The shift in student independence in solving mathematical problems has been evident in my anecdotal notes of lessons during this year.  There was also a shift in the students' reflection in their maths books of how they have been learning in maths. At the beginning of the year, many students preferred to let what they perceived as able mathematicians take over the problem solving. Towards the middle of the year, there was a gradual shift in students giving their ideas to discussions which lead to students leading or facilitating discussions. 

Through a consistent emphasis on participation, the students in my target group understood they were to take part in problem solving and if they did not know what was being discussed, that they could raise their hand and ask questions for clarification. Upon reflection, I have thought about do my students need to be taught strategies they could follow when they do not understand? Do my students needs to be taught how to ask questions? Clarify misunderstandings? Note take? I have concluded that students do need to be taught what they could do when they do not understand. Often, students will prefer not to ask because they do not want to be highlighted as the student who does not understand. How can I as a teacher, create and encourage an environment of collaboration and support for all students so they are able to learn and re-learn at their own pace?

The DMIC tasks are given to schools who implement DMIC. Teachers are to take the tasks and plan for their lessons using a template which was provided from the DMIC programme. Reflecting on the planning part of DMIC, I know that there needs to be more consideration about the students who are below their expected achievement level in maths. How can the students who have a lot of gaps in their knowledge, build on their knowledge so they are able to solve problems in their expected levels. We have been considering and anticipating misconceptions students can have in their strategies when solving problems, but I feel it is not enough for students to learn a new strategy and consolidate a strategy within a week. Possible solution? Workshops during the week. 

Student voice, peer collaboration. This is something I have worked very hard to implement in my lessons this year. From the start, we have included student voice and peer collaboration in our Community of Mathematicians norms. I am very confident to say that, in my class teaching, all my students are able to work with any peer they are partnered with. This is a great way to build inclusiveness in the class. For the whole class to be inclusive and to value the collaboration between peers. 

Assessment data

The summative data from the maths assessments shows most of the students in my target group have made progress in their maths testing. One student who did not do very well in their PAT test was due to lack of effort during the test (student JF Y8). Was really pleasing to see the students' progress in the Gloss test as well as the PAT maths test. During the Gloss testing, it was evident the students wanted to keep trying to answer the questions in the test. They had the perseverance and the determination to give all the questions a chance to solve them. 

Where to from here, while the learner identities and self confidence of the students were strengthened in this teaching as inquiry, I have realised, the assessment data proves that there are a lot of mathematical knowledge that students lack and therefore hindering their progress in mathematics as shown in the assessment results. 

What leads to students lack of confidence in maths? What can be done early in their education journey to address these? What is a good balance for problem solving to develop mathematical inquiry communities and mathematical workshops for student content knowledge?

These are some of the questions I have been reflecting on for further steps from this year's inquiry. There is a great need for students to have workshops to build their mathematical knowledge. Students also need to be assessed throughout the year in both formative and summative assessments. Another aspect I want to explore more into my practice is the collaboration between student and teacher in teaching and learning. How involved are students in the decisions making about their leanring? How can I consistently factor in student voice in their learning? 

DMIC practices: Mixed ability grouping

How do mathematical practices in DMIC support learner identities in Maths?

One of the arguments I had when we switched over to DMIC was that mixed ability grouping will allow the able mathematicians in the group to take over the discussion while students who are not confident in Maths will take the observer role. I also questioned how I would be able to cater for the diverse abilities if the students are in a mixed group. Reflecting now, those were the questions of a closed minded person. I was really trying to stay with what I was already used to in grouping my students for maths through ability grouping.

Mixed ability grouping is part of the DMIC practices. My class is split into two mixed ability groups for maths. When I group the students, I consider their mathematical confidence and social dynamics of the class. I like to have a balance of these factors into the grouping of my class. 

"Because Pasifika children tend not to talk, their teachers assume they don’t understand and put them in a bottom group. Once there, they become trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle of low expectations", Associate Professor Bobbie Hunter. 

I reflect to the start of my teaching career when I grouped my students in ability groups and feel a heavy sense in my heart about how my students in the 'low groups' must have felt knowing they were in the 'low groups'. How being in a low group might have been detrimental to their self confidence as a learner.

Because the students are in mixed ability groups, there is a lot of teaching which goes into ensuring the students work well together and that collaboration is a 'norm'. How I start each year with my maths groups is by setting up group norms for each group. It is very important to set up the group norms at the beginning of the year to build a sense of whakawhanaungatanga in each group. Setting up group norms is also supported in the work by Jo Boaler setting up positive norms in maths class. 

On going tweaks are needed to ensure the mixed ability grouping is working in my class. To ensure the students are all leanring together and the confident mathematicians are not taking over the discussions, we have set up norms where there is only one paper and one pencil per group. There can only be one scribe who writes down what is being discussed and anyone can have a turn during the discussion to be the scribe.

Questioning is also another leanring practice we have focussed on during our lessons. We have time and time again discussed the importance of listening of understanding and asking questions when we are unsure. There have been many discussions where we have unpacked the understanding that, when we question, we are deepening the learning discussion and we are not judging or challenging the person who is sharing their ideas. 

Through mixed ability grouping, I have noticed how caring students are towards each other. There is a true sense of collaboration and aroha with how the students work together. The confident mathematicians in the class take time to explain their ideas to students who are not confident in maths and take time to ask if they understand the strategies being discussed. 

GBS holiday learning programme update

As of Saturday 11.51 pm, there are 53 students who have signed up for our holiday learning programme. I have to admit the holiday programme is taking up a lot of my mental space at the moment. There are so many aspects of the programme I am thinking about and worrying about.

How will I ensure the activities for the holiday learning programme is exciting for the students and caters for years 4-8? I have been thinking, since this is happening during the school holidays and I am mostly working from home while the students are working from home, I want to have whanau involvement as much as possible in the programme. It will give parents, caregivers and whanau opportunities to be active supporters for students participating. I have also been thinking of including my own whanau especially my daughters as I believe it will excite the students to see the little girls, a lot of students enquire about.

How can I ensure all blog posts are commented on and are allocated points? I have a spreadsheet I have created for my team and I which has all the names of the participants listed under their class. I have also shared the link for the feed with my team to check as blog posts are updated. However, there is still the WHAT IF worry. 

I have already encountered some challenges with the blogs for some of the students who have not been blogging for some time. Some blogs are showing that they need to be upgraded. I have sent a request through for support from the Awhina team to upgrade these blogs. 

I know for a lot of our students, they will be busy during their holidays but if we can engage them in some learning activities during the holidays through this programme, then our mission is accomplished. I am really hoping this is the start of exciting our students to utilise their blogs to share the excellent learning they do in their classes and also their unique and wonderful creativity. I am a strong advocate for promoting creativity in learning and through the blogs, our students can shine in their element.

Holiday learning programme - empowering students through leadership

Students who wanted to be blog commenters had to apply to me by submitting an application letter stating why they wanted to be blog commenters for the holiday learning programme. Out all the applicants who applied, I chose only four for the roles. 

Their role: 

Revise the Cybersmart challenge about making quality blog comments

Go to the blog posts posted by students and post a comment 

Give points to the blog points they commented on 

Meet with me regular during the holidays to discuss how the programme is progressing

Direct our team to a blog post they believe is worthy of golden points 

Be strictly confidential about the points system and who the winners are

The photo above was taken during our meeting today. I am so proud to see how proud they are of their roles and more importantly, how empowered they are as leaders through this opportunity. The questions they raised during our meeting indicated to me that they have been thinking about their role throughout the week.

Some questions asked by the blog commenters

How do we record which blog we have commented on?

How many points do we give the blog posts and what are the criteria for the points?

Can we also participate in the holiday learning programme if we are the blog commenters?

When will we announce the winners in Term 4?

I am looking forward to the collaboration between our team during the holiday learning programme. We discussed that each blog comment they make will earn them some money and we will calculate their earnings at the end. We will also have a shared lunch to celebrate our team at the end however, there is a lot of work to be done before we cross the celebrating at the end bridge.

Referring back to the title of this post, giving students different opportunities to challenge themselves, learn from and collaborate with their peers and teachers are just some of the work we as teachers do to build our akonga. 

Launching our Glenbrae School holiday learning programme

Today I launched a project I have been planning for a few weeks. The Glenbrae School Holiday Learning Programme.

The objective of this programme is:

• For students to maintain learning during the school holidays
• Encourage our students to blog and share the wonderful learning they do with others through their blogs
• I wanted to give my students the opportunity to apply for a holiday job (blogging fairies had to send me an application letter if they wanted to be a commenter)

Signing up

The students had to sign up using a google form.

How the programme will work

My Class blog will be the launching blog for the students to access the daily activities. Each morning at 9 am, the activities will be posted for the day. The activities are different for each day but there is always a high emphasis on being creative for the tasks. There are two choices for the create activities for each day. 

• Level 1 is a create activity where there is no sound or evidence of motion. For example - blogging slides, a google draw, text.
• Level 2 is a SISOMO blog post. SISOMO stands for sight, sound, motion. We can see them presenting or we can hear them talking about their work. Level 2 earns more points.
• We will also have GOLDEN points for extraordinary blog posts

Monitoring the programme

I am assigning myself as a subscriber to the blog of every student who signs up for the learning programme. Each time a student blogs, I will receive a notification and I will then update a spreadsheet I share with my blog commenters or blog fairies. The blog commenters will then go and view the blog and leave a comment. The blog commenter will also assign points for the blog post they commented on and alert the blogging team if there is an outstanding blog posts which is deserving of golden points. Prior to the commencement of the holiday programme, the blog commenters and I went through Manaiakalani Cybersmart site and reviewed how we can leave good quality blog comments.

End of programme

The programme will run from Monday - Friday in the two weeks of the school break. At the end of the last Friday, the blog commenters and I will have a meeting to finalise the winners.

This is the first time we are running this programme and I am hoping it will encourage our students to continue learning during the school holidays and to share the awesome creativity they are capable of in their learning. 

Here are the slides from the launch this morning.

Considerations during planning

1. How will I manage the blogging? How can I be alerted every time a student posts a blog post 

Solution - assign myself as a subscriber to each participant's blog. I also advised the students today in the launch that they can email me if they do not receive any comments in two days of posting blog posts. Vicki Archer also shared a link which has the blog feed for our school. I will also use this to check the students' blog posts. 

2. What activities will I have in this learning programme, considering the students are from Year 4-8.

Solution - have activities which cater for all year levels involved and not be curriculum level focussed. The objective of the programme is for students to blog and to Learn, Create and Share. 

3. How will I manage the blog commenters and the comments they do. 

Solution: have a shared spreadsheet with our team of blog commenters. I am to post the link to the blogs with posts and each commenter can assign themselves to a post they will comment on. The commenter will also post a link to their comment on the spreadsheet so I can follow up if a comment was good quality or not. (Also a way to calculate their pay/reward for their work).

Above are just some of the considerations, like I mentioned earlier in this post. This is the first time I am running a programme like this and therefore, a lot of learning will come through this experience. 

DMIC observation

Today, I was observed by one of the DMIC facilitators in my class. The focus of the observations is to provide ongoing support to teachers implementing the DMIC programme in their classes. 

When the facilitator asked what aspect of the DMIC kaupapa I wanted her to observe me on, I asked her if she could observe how inclusive I am in my teaching. I wanted feedback on how I am ensuring that my practice is inclusive of all members of the group I was teaching. The students are grouped in a mixed ability group and therefore have different approaches and understandings of the task. I still see evidence of students who prefer to work with a more capable mathematician in the class because they trust, that student will do the work for them. 

During the launch, I used the Talk Moves to unpack the problem with the group. I specifically asked students to repeat their understanding of the discussion at different points of the lesson to ensure they were listening to the discussion and also participating. 

When the students separated in their small groups to work out the problem, I noticed some students trying to be inclusive of their quiet peers while others disregarded their quiet peers and worked out the problem without discussion. This is where what I have been implementing to promote inclusiveness came into action. 

Teacher actions 

• Ask a different member of the group if they could explain the strategy they were working on. 
• Ask for the pen to be moved to another student to be the writer and the person sharing their strategy to explain themselves
• Prompt students who have solved the problem if there are any other strategies they could use
• Praise students for giving the problem a go even when they thought they could not solve it

I have often reflected and believe that the energy and enthusiasm we as teachers have in our teaching transfers on to the enthusiasm of our learners. I have seen evidence of this in so many lessons where my passion and enthusiasm for a lesson just excites the students too. This is another aspect of being inclusive in my practice. 

The feedback I received from my observation was the need for more generalisation in connecting the maths lesson at the end. The students are more engaged in the lessons through the use of Talk Moves and the teacher actions I am implementing in my practice. 

There are also cultural practices which need to be considered when focussing on an inclusive environment. The concept of talanoa. Encouraging all members of the group to voice their opinions and questions. Culturally inclusive practices is another focus on this teaching inquiry to promote an inclusive environment in my class where students are encouraged to take risks in their learning in all curriculum areas.

Casual chain for my inquiry

This is the casual chain for my 2023 inquiry. I have identified what I will do in my practice to make changes and add effect to what the students are learning and how they are learning already in maths. While we continuously have support from the DMIC facilitators, I also know a lot of this inquiry is focussed on my individual actions as a teacher.

There are aspects of this casual chain such as the Community of Mathematicians which has been implemented already and is often referred to by the students and myself. This is displayed on our maths wall and is constantly referred to during our lessons. 

I know the planning of learning is a vital part of teaching and that is one of the focusses of my inquiry. To plan mathematical problems where the big idea is identified and the problem relates to the big idea. DMIC encourages students to solve the problems using strategies they are able to use. Through the connect, the teacher is able to teach or reinforce the strategy at the learning level for the students. In my case, it is level 4 strategies because I teach year 7 and 8 students. 

I have also changed routines in my class to ensure I am able to see both groups each day. The main group for the day is the group I problem solve with, the other group I see to discuss their independent tasks and to give feedback.

This intervention is to magnify the effects of my implementation of DMIC practices and notice if they change the attitude of my target learners towards maths and improve their progress. Through what I have been implementing so far, I have noticed changes in the korero my students have in their problem solving. 

Amy casual chain 2023