Teaching Inquiry 2018 - Talk Moves

STUDENT NEEDS, DATA AND HUNCHES
I had originally intended to use this inquiry opportunity to examine how I could better teach my students the fundamentals for writing. This was based on my personal reflection that in 2018 I needed to improve how I taught this subject area.

However, after listening to the presentation by Woolf Fisher researchers at Tamaki College, I needed to change my plan. The 2017 results for students achievement across schools in the Manaiakalani cluster clearly showed that Maths was a bigger concern than Writing.

This realisation prompted me to check the data for my Maths class for this year. Based on National Standards benchmarks, only 2 students had achieved 'at' by the end of 2017, the remaining 27 students were sitting at either 'below' or 'well below'.

I wanted to focus on the band of students who are noted as 'below' in Maths. WIth the right intervention, there is a better chance of achieving upaward shift in 'below' learners than those who are 'well below'.  I then identified a group who I can best describe as being in Maths learning limbo - by this I mean that while they show capability in Maths they are stuck and not progressing because  I have not been able to move them to the up to the next level.  

Within this group I have identified six priority learners - all Year 8 students who achieved Stage 6 at the end of 2017. NB: Ideally they should have been hitting Stage 7. 

My hunch is that the progress of this group of Maths learners is being held back because they struggle to understand and then correctly apply higher level strategies. 

THE CHALLENGE AHEAD

Building on Maths PD last year with Jo Knox,  PES is rolling out the DMIC (Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities) approach of teaching maths across the entire school i.e. from Year 1 to Year 8. Based on comprehensive research in the US around complex maths instruction, Prof. Bobbi Hunter of Massey University has developed a pedagogy that aims to deepen students understanding of maths - working in mixed ability groups to collectively solve maths problems.

The challenge will be to find out how to best to use the DMIC pedagogy to build confidence in priority learners so they are more likely to take risks to grapple with more complex problems - the payoff being they will develop their maths thinking and problem solving skills and progress to more complex maths work.

TALK MOVES - A POSSIBLE SOLUTION?

The DMIC teaching approach uses maths problems rooted in the real world problems in cultural contexts that are relevant and engaging for students and related to 'big' maths ideas.

For my inquiry then, as an initial starting point, I would like to investigate how the use of TALK MOVES can support my priority students to improve their understanding and make use of higher level Maths concepts.

Fractions and Decimals with Jo Knox

Today Team 5 had the opportunity to watch Jo Knox in action with two different Maths groups (one at Stage 6 and one at Stage 7). The aim was to see her teach students to convert fractions into decimals.

DIAGNOSTIC TESTING Jo asked a series of quick questions to gauge the groups understanding of fractions and decimals based on examples from the Numeracy  Development Project (NPD) resources or ‘Pink books’.

MATERIALS - Decipipes are a really effective tool to help support students to understand the basics of fractions and decimals. They are also easy for students to manipulate, able to break/build up both representations of both fraction and decimal numbers. 

STRATEGY MODEL Start students off using materials then progressing to Imaging and then Materials as students show greater fluency in their use of a given strategy - see NPD Book 3 p5 

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MODELLING BOOK - Number equations were recorded in a modelling book in plain view of all students. A handy reference point for the teacher to guide students in their thinking and to record in themselves (see next note).
STUDENT THINKING - Jo regularly asked students to explain their answers. The focus was on how they got an answer, helped to highlight can be more than one ‘correct’ solution; extended this to give specific roles to members of the group - split group into three - one group explained their answer, while a second group modelled the answer using materials (decipipes) and a third group recorded answer in modelling book - this approach ensure all students were fully engaged!

PLENARY - at the end of each group’s session, Jo asked the students to reflect on what they had learned and together they co-constructed the WALT for the lesson in kid’s language - she feels that sharing the WALT at start of lesson isl ike giving away the punchline of a joke upfront

Example 1: WALT Convert fractions and decimals by turning them into tenths, hundredths and thousandths

Example 2: WALT by add numbers by taking one off one number and adding to another to make a whole number

So many golden nuggets from this session! I would like to try out co-constructing WALTs with my students - it will be interesting to see if what I had planned to teach matches up with what students feel they have learnt.

Term 3 Inquiry Update: Rich Learning Activities

In Term 3, my priority students changed and I revamped my inquiry focus question to investigate the extent to which the format of maths problems will influence the problem solving abilities of my target students.

My latest hunch was that the format of the questions I gave to the students was impacting on their ability to be successful in problem solving.
A PD session with Jo Knox highlighted the benefits of using open ended, rich learning tasks (like the 'Giant's Hand' activity to the right) as a way to engage and challenge students. She explained a resource bank is available on the nzmaths site. 
I chose rich learning activities that matched the term topic of Geometry & Measurement. To explore the concept of perimeter further, I chose the Parking Cars task for my priority group. Students needed to work out a new car park layout for a specific number of vehicles.

First we unpacked the problem in our group session and clarified key details e.g the dimensions of the parking lot and the required car spaces. I was explicit in telling them that there may be more than one possible result. Despite some initial hesitation to this 'new' kind of problem after the discussion, the students were all super keen to head off and be the first to work out a possible solution. Working with a buddy or on their own, some made a screencastify recording to explain their 'solution'.Samples of student work are below:

Click here for Junior's full blog post

Click here for Kerstein's full blog post

The open ended and real-life nature of the rich tasks totally engaged the students and without any prompting from me. They willingly took longer to work through different options and were less focused on finding the 'right' answer. Their end solutions highlighted how students had interpreted (or misinterpreted) a problem and so provided me with a useful starting point for a discussion to find out more about their thinking process.

I was really pleased with the students' positive response to the 'rich' task and would like to use them with all the groups. The challenge will be to find tasks that are appropriate - not too hard or not too easy - and linked to the given maths topic being reviewed.

As Term 4 kicks off, the next hunch I would like to explore is how modelling books can be used to effectively scaffold my priority students in problem solving strategies.

I can do IKAN differently!

I tried out modified IKAN testing approach suggested by Jo Knox and then implemented by my mentor teacher & Team Leader (TL) Andrea Tele'a.

My target students performed better in the new test context. They got to sit the test two times before marking their results. I noticed that students were a lot less flustered using this new format, as their was far less pressure to keep up with the quick flow of questions. If they missed a question, they knew they could catch it again in the second run through. This took the pressure off them to get the 'right answer' immediately.

Students were able to review their answers independently with an answer sheet and make a call and choose 2-3 'silly' mistakes they had made in the heat of the moment as well as and one question/domain to focus on. 

I think this approach was successful because it shifted the emphasis from passing/failing a test that would normally deliver a quick fire succession of questions to student's having time to work out answers and then making an honest self-assessment of their number knowledge.