Beyond a Blackboard

This term I've been trying out my maths intervention. I have been using more materials/ songs etc. - a variety of modes of content and different teaching practices. This has been targeted specifically at my groups operating at level 1 and 2 of the curriculum. It has been hard work.  The gaps of my learners are very broad, so while they are technically around the same level, they have different strengths and weaknesses. I think having the span of level 1 - 5 has been a little too much to cater for effectively - I take my hat off to teachers in rural schools who have this span. I expect you would get accustomed to it, but also I think a smaller class (less than 29) would help greatly! The activities have definitely paid off - I can see how teaching using multi-modal offline/online experiences is especially important when learning the initial maths concepts. However, I think it's quite engaging for all learners, even those working well above. The problem lies with the time it take...

 This morning I taught maths to a large group (around 21) of Y7/8 students performing well below in maths. In Geometry (our current focus), most of these students were around a year three level. Perfect for my intervention! I was excited by the opportunity to teach a full lesson in the style of my intervention. With a range of activities and videos up my sleeve I devoted the full 80 minutes to teaching the students about the properties of shapes. Some of our investigating included: A triangle is still a triangle if it is 'upside down' and 'sideways' There are different types of triangle A square has to have the same length sides or it is a rectangle  A rhombus is not a wonky square Not every 5+ sided shape is a hexagon - there's a name for each! The students actually loved learning these things! I was so pleasantly surprised by their level of engagement and willingness to ask questions when all of the tasks were at their level and presented in different ways. At one...

 Towards the end of term 2 I had a rude awakening: I had a term left of my inquiry before starting maternity leave!! Due to this, I needed to fast track my intervention. It was really tempting to fall back on my 2017 dissertation, in which I had a hugely successful intervention in maths that really changed my practice for the better. As I critiqued my current practice, I could feel myself falling back on this. It was hard not to examine myself through a narrow lens; what am I not doing now that has worked well in the past? Obviously it is important to use past inquiries - 'don't throw the baby out with the bath water'. But simply going back to an old intervention felt like a cop out. I had to at least build on it and adapt it. As I identified a weakness in my practice for teaching early maths knowledge and strategies, I decided to try something different. I investigated the style of teaching - the teaching process in our new entrants hub. Key Learnings - When the maths itse...

 After consulting research about what could be considered 'best practice' in teaching mathematics, I need to compare my findings with my current practice. After looking at my planning/ class site, student blogs and chatting to my students, there are a few things I can see I have strengths in and some that I need to work on. PROS Curriculum knowledge This has always been one of my strengths. I was real nerd at university and have attended a fair bit of PD over the years to ensure I have a good understanding of what is expected at each level of the curriculum. As such, I can offer students content that is appropriate for their level of learning. A lot of the content I have historically made covers level 4 achievement objectives - appropriate for year 7 and 8. Hill, Rowan and Ball (2005) identify that teachers knowledge directly affects their students achievement. It has been a common theme I have seen across literature, but there is a lot more to teaching maths. Basic Facts I hav...

 At a recent inquiry meeting, Clarelle mentioned that her testing revealed that her students gaps were like a sieve; each child had different gaps in different areas with little overlap.  I can definitely say the same about my class; the gaps have common themes but differ with each child. A common theme I have found; the difference between my year sevens and eights is huge. My year eights consistently outperform my year sevens and have fewer gaps, except for in extenuating circumstances (e.g. two girls whose attendance was below 50 percent for years of their schooling).As such, I am going to do almost a year level split in my class in terms of my grouping. Another common theme is that my year sevens tend to have strengths in number, but their strand and ratio knowledge is massively lacking.  After dedicating almost ten weeks to filling in all number and ratio gaps, I now have to attend to the gaps that the children have in strand. Like I mentioned before, while I can gene...

 After reading about how Irish and Swedish teachers facilitate more memorisation of facts than in New Zealand, I decided to read a little further about 'rote learning'. I found this article with information about the rote learning of basic facts. While it contains some things I am already familiar with - the fact that knowledge of basic facts such as times tables frees up cognitive load and enables children to solve more complex problems. The level of memorisation required by students is automaticity - they need instant recall. For example, do you know off the top of your head, do you know the 15th letter of the alphabet? What about 4 x 8? 8,16... is not automatic - it needs to be something that comes straight to mind. Otherwise there is still some cognitive load. In order to reach this level of automaticity, it seems like a variety of approaches is needed. Students need to be exposed to basic facts in different contexts, multiple times to commit them to memory. I think this i...

This week I had a go at creating a hands on create activity - a video to teach other students the three times tables. This was at the end of teaching three weeks on the three times table.  Times tables are another aspect of maths that my students are behind on. My advanced year eights could do them in their sleep, but for my 'at' or below students and all of my year sevens, they are a real struggle! I hope by exploring concepts in different contexts my learners will master them!

 I've already investigated the state of mathematics in NZ. We clearly have a problem and it is far wider than that of my own classroom. As Hannah, Clarelle and I are undertaking a collaborative inquiry, I decided to have a look at what other countries have done to increase mathematics on a far broader level. I looked at our latest NZ TIMSS data in an earlier post, so today I thought I'd look at the countries improving their TIMSS results. This report  compares the changes made in three countries improving their TIMSS score to the work that we do in NZ. The three countries were Austria, Ireland and Sweden. In Austria the most obvious difference to me is the way the teaching profession is treated. Austrian teachers complete a masters course within their first five years of teaching. Specialist maths teachers are utilised from year 6 onwards. As such, their pedagogical content knowledge would be higher than many NZ teachers. In Ireland, they have mathematics recovery, similar to ...

 This term I have been gathering data from my learners to determine what challenges need to be addressed. I went into detail on my data collection in previous posts. One piece of data that was most striking straight away was my students lack of knowledge in fractions. At the end of term 1, I glossed the majority of my class. There was a group of 7 students whose knowledge in fractions was severely lacking in comparison with their ability to add or multiply. These students were achieving scores around stage 6 in add/sub and mult/div, but stage 2-4 in ratio and proportion. These students could multiply and divide by 4, but could not find 1/4 of 20. There are a multitude of studies that support the fact that fractions are a common weakness for primary school students, for several reasons  ( Behr et al., 1983 ;  Moss and Case, 1999 ;  Grégoire and Meert, 2005 ;  Charalambous and Pitta-Pantazi, 2007 ). From my in class observations, I can see that these students also...

Are NZ teachers really failing our students in maths? In 2020, Year 9 students scores in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) fell by the largest margins since the study began in 1994. There is a large gap in the achievement of students from high vs low socioeconomic backgrounds and girls are outperforming boys. However, it also found that the students home environment had the biggest impact on their achievement across all countries.   In the holidays, I spent two weeks at a daycare with a 'high decile' rating whose roll consisted largely of south east asian students and then pakeha (groups who have been found to have the highest achievement in mathematics).  The first thing I noticed was the students language skills. The three year olds were using phrases and full sentences, asking questions and speaking enough that you could pick up on their thought processes and understanding of the activity they were engaging with. They were excited to lea...

As I wrote in my last blog post, I intend to conduct a broad student survey with my class which will be shared across the school to look for overall trends. However, Driscoll (2011) asserts that interviews are useful when gathering in depth data from a small sample. In order to effectively address the needs of my target learners, it makes sense to interview them to gain more insight into their experiences and attitudes towards mathematics. Here are the questions I have formulated so far. The interview will be informal to support the ease of my students and I will ask follow up questions to gain further insights and to clarify my understanding. 1. What is your favourite thing about maths?  Potential follow up - Do you enjoy it? 2. What is your least favourite thing about maths? 3. Can you think of a maths lesson you have enjoyed in the past? What happened? 4. How would you rate your ability out of 5 in maths? Why do you think that? 5. Can you think of an area of maths that you would...

 To inform my inquiry I need to gather data from my students regarding their level of achievement in maths, but also their prior experiences and disposition towards the subject. Gathering Academic Data: I will use the PAT Maths test results, Gloss test data and e-asTTle maths test data. Greene (2007) purports that it is vital to triangulate test data in order to ensure validity of the results. It could be that one of my students was ill or having an 'off day' when they took the PAT test for example. Or they could have had a great time selecting random answers which can pay off in a multi-choice test like PAT. I know that by using three different testing methods, I will have a more accurate picture of my students current achievement and have more opportunity to identify results that might be inaccurate.  I am interested to see if there are any patterns in the data. For example, so far from my gloss testing, I have found a large group of students who have a weakness in ratio ...

This morning the CoL across school teachers had the privilege of being invited to the School Leaders PLD.  This is an opportunity for school leaders (SMT), Manaiakalani Facilitators and Staff to meet to discuss topics pertinent to our Manaiakalani community, teachers and learners. We kicked off with a korero from Russell Burt, Convenor, who discussed the main goal and focus for us at the moment; getting a '3fer'. A 3fer meaning getting accelerated progress in Reading, Writing and Maths. Our data shows that we do well across the cluster in writing, and that we have teachers  in our schools who are able to get a 3fer, but we need to get this consistent across all classes and maintain it for three years. He also discussed the need to collect data, as the Ministry of Education is falling short at investigating the things that teachers are doing and the impact this has on student learning. We heard from Dorothy who recently lead this keynote for Hapara,  Fiona lead conversati...

 Today a lot of my release has been spent glossing my class, so I can build a far more accurate picture of student achievement. This has prompted a few wonderings regarding formative assessment.  Since covid, my school moved away from having teachers gloss the entire class, instead we were advised to gloss the students who we felt were on the 'cusp' of a level, or who we find it harder to make an OTJ for. This made sense to me, as I collect pre/post test data via asttle/ other forms of summative assessment. Last year for example, I had around 8 test results to look at from the second half of the year to inform my OTJ. These included some Gloss testing, lots of asttle results and some ARBs type mini test results.  However, I know I am an outlier in terms of this frequent testing. I wonder if we should be doing more mini formative assessment/ different types of assessment throughout the year to better inform our practice. This is something I will bring to my inquiry group, ...

 This week Hannah , Clarelle and I have been discussing our collaborative maths inquiry. I am so excited to work with these ladies as I feel we will make a bigger impact working together, looking at a school wide problem. Our overall problem is that our students are performing poorly in mathematics. We need to narrow this down and identify specific issues in this area.  Some of the ponderings we have had so far are: - Do certain areas of maths have larger gaps? -Are the students able to apply their knowledge?  -Why aren't student's choosing the most efficient ways of solving problems? - Do the children have self efficacy? Do they know where they are at/ their next steps? - Are they willing to learn from each other?  To help us to find areas of focus, Hannah has been working on a series of surveys. She has made one for the senior management team, one for teachers and one for the students.  Here is an example, the teacher survey: Teacher survey: Meanwhile, Clarel...

 In my last blog post, I was considering which subject to focus on for my CoL inquiry and came to the conclusion that I should look at Maths. I have since teamed up with Clarelle Carruthers and Hannah Burton to form a collaborative inquiry group. The first step to an inquiry is identifying a problem. I think this evidence is pretty compelling:  This data illustrates the fact that our school's maths data is far behind that of the other Manaiakalani schools. Something needs to change! We have decided to gather data from across the school to try and identify an area of need from a range of year levels. We are hoping this will support us to make a bigger impact on our learners. We will of course still examine our own practice and make changes as per a normal inquiry. The idea being that we all follow a similar approach so that other teachers can replicate it if it is successful.

To help support me to narrow down my inquiry focus (i.e. choose which of my many ideas to actually focus on), I have been chatting to colleagues to identify areas of need. Yes, reading is still at the forefront of our minds and an area of focus here at Pt England. Across the cluster we have recognised an issue with students getting stuck at an 8-9 year old reading level for several years. But we have amazing research and a variety of CoL inquiries that have confronted this problem.  At the moment we have a cluster wide reading intensive, where the Manaiakalani researchers are giving teachers practical support and suggestions that will shift our learners. This programme is based upon research in our own classrooms - it's the next level of inquiry!  I think it is quite clear what needs to be done - after years of inquiry and this reading intensive, we really need to put the suggestions from the researchers and other CoL teachers into practice.  So while it is a school focus...

 Wow, I am super eager to get started with my inquiry this year. After spending a couple of weeks with my two main classes, I cannot wait to get further into investigating their learning. In fact I'm probably too excited in terms of narrowing down my inquiry focus. On one hand, I have an amazing opportunity to focus on reading. This year half of my class are 'stuck' at an 8-9 year old reading level. I also have one group slightly lower and one group who are at. I have spent the last four and a half years focussed on reading, with particular focus on this level. This could be an amazing year to get shift and work with this level on a larger scale. But after spending so long focussed on this, would it truly be an inquiry, or more putting my past inquiries into practice on a larger scale? On the other hand, my real passion started with maths. It was the topic of my dissertation and a subject I really enjoy teaching. I love planning for maths - I can clearly imagine learning pa...

Kia ora, I'm Danni Stone! I'm a year 7/8 teacher at Pt England School.  For several years, my inquiry was focussed on reading. In  2019 , I was interested in generating more discussion about texts and used reciprocal reading, argumentation boards and debate as part of my intervention. In  2020  I looked at teaching my students to self-reflect in reading; to identify when they found something challenging and to stop and employ a strategy to support their understanding.  In 2021 I was an across schools teacher and combined my previous two inquiries, with further changes to my practice to shift my learners who were stuck around an 8 year old level. This was a highly successful intervention, but I left in term three to have my daughter, Ruby. I am now back as an across schools teacher in 2023 and really looking forward to the year ahead!  Please feel free to visit my  class site , to watch my lessons on  Class onAir  or check out my  MIT ...