Forming Hunches from Student Data

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 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 have major gaps in areas such as measurement; even how to use a ruler! There is one very obvious factor that this could be attributed to - distance learning and absence during Covid. 

These mathematic concepts really require the use of materials and very direct teaching - something that was very tricky to do during Covid. It also makes sense that the gaps that these students have go back to a year 4 level - the age they were when lockdowns first started. 

So a hunch I have is that my students are going to need more opportunities to use materials and experience concepts in different contexts. Learning about fractions for example, they are going to need repetition and to keep exploring with concepts, as purported in studies such as Gabriel et al., 2013.

I am going to respond to this hunch during my unit on fractions at the start of term 2, so that I can gather more data and evaluate my own practice.


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