Update on my Inquiry...

I have met with my group today and discussed how my Inquiry is going for this point in the year. 

I found Term 2 a very distracting term that did not allow me as much of a chance to focus on my Maths programme as I would have liked, due to having a Student Teacher in for five weeks (I wanted to keep things consistent for her sake and didn’t change things up too much). I also had the distraction of being asked to contribute my ideas and thoughts to the new Sunshine Decodables programme, that was in the process of being put online. - This culminated in me going into the Sunshine offices in the last school holidays to record some videos of how I have been using this programme in my own classroom practice. You can view these here.

Back to my original goal of improving my Maths teaching and the children’s learning, I am excited by some changes I have recently implemented in my programme. Trying to motivate the children to stay on task, I have discovered some very useful and engaging resources as part of the Teacher Support Material, available through MathSeeds (which I trialled through my Reading Eggs membership). These are aligning nicely with my teacher-led lessons from the NZC books we are using in our school. 

I have seen some pleasing improvement (which I largely put down to our regular use of XtraMath in the classroom) in mid-year testing with many Stage 2-3 students achieving Stage 4 in Additive Thinking in their JAM tests. 

This leads to where  I am focussing for the second half of the year - improving knowledge and ability in Multiplicative Thinking and Fractions. I look forward to working closely with my colleague Sonali Carter, to plan and implement engaging lessons that achieve measurable shift in these areas. 

My Professional Teaching Inquiry for 2021!

As stated in my final blog post of 2020, I am keen to focus on my Maths programme in 2021. 

My focus question is: How can I use purposeful teaching of mathematical language to raise the achievement of my learners in Mathematics? 

I am interested in how best to incorporate the professional learning we have had in Mathematics through the DMiC PLD over the last two years, with the more prescriptive approach through using the NZC Mathematics Books as a resource throughout the school this year. I would like to try to balance the two approaches, so as to ensure full and appropriate curriculum coverage while still giving children the rich discussion and problem solving approach. 

Looking at my Y3s PAT results, we can see our Y2s from 2020 did not retain enough number knowledge, particularly in place value and basic facts. Applying this knowledge to word problems and understanding the language used is also another big problem. I am mindful of mixing up my use of mathematical terms to ensure understanding of all terms that the children may come across. Eg. spelling out that the total number means to count all. I also think ‘language’ can incorporate visuals / resources that children need to be familiar with (eg. place value blocks) and will be mindful of using an appropriate variety throughout the course of the year. 

Working with Sonali Carter we are going to try planning together, using the NZC books as well as our own experience to push number knowledge retention, basic facts and teach our children explicitly how to apply this knowledge in various word problem situations. 

 I am going to investigate both the physical NZCM texts to understand how they break down the Mathematics Curriculum at my level, as well as the online resource material provided. I am going to rewrite appropriate problems to encourage discussion and authentic understanding with my own students. 

 I am using XtraMaths for the first time with my class this year. I am finding this a great way to encourage the knowledge base growth that is needed by my students to begin to tackle word problems with more understanding. 

 I am stepping my class through learning progressions more deliberately than I have before to ensure there is a good coverage of the basics - such as making 5, 10, doubles, halves and families of facts.