Promoting use of Oral Language and reflection in Writing

This term in Ako 3, we have been promoting use of oral language through purposeful collaborative learning experiences. During writing, we have incorporated this into our weekly schedule through peer editing. The tool which we have introduced to the children to support them in the peer editing of their writing is a rubric. This rubric has been highly successful with our year 5 learners.

Click the rubric to open the google drawing in a new tab (and make a copy if you would like to). Any feedback on this rubric and how it could be made better is warmly welcomed!

Each Thursday morning, the children pair up. These groupings change from week to week. Together, the children decide whose writing they are going to focus on first. Once decided, that child opens their writing doc on their chrome book while the other child opens the peer editing rubric on their chrome book. 

The rubric is broken into four sections: punctuation, correct sentences, vocabulary and organisation/structure. The nice thing about this rubric is that it is accessible for ALL learners. Together, the children have to agree on where the piece of writing fits on the rubric (for each of these sections). Once this is decided, there is a clear 'action' for the children to follow in order to improve their writing. 

Although it is early days using this rubric, we have been really pleased with how the children have responded to using it. It is clear that as the children become more familiar with the rubric, they will begin having more and more quality learning conversations with their buddy. Already, we are seeing the potential that this tool has for the ākonga in our space.

I don't believe that this rubric would be as effective if it didn't have the action prompts. These prompts give the children a clear direction so that they can be critical of their own and their classmates' writing.

Language Acquisition in maths

What have I done in my Inquiry this term?

- Targeted students who tend to be quiet in group learning.

- GLOSS for these students showed limited progress in number.

- For these students, I assessed their use/ improvement in maths (through maths-whizz): 4.7, 4.3, 3.2, 2.2, 2.2, 2.0, 1.0, 0.4 progressions per week.

- I was concerned about those who had a progress of 2.2 progressions and below, particularly with the amount of time these students were spending on maths-whizz.

This suggests that those learners (2.2 and below for maths-whizz) required small group support, rather than independent work when not with the teacher. Therefore, from this target group, there are two clear groups which I can be meeting with every second day on top of DMIC problem solving. I will also work to ensure these learners are with each other in group problem solving.

Language acquisition through DMIC maths

For learners to participate in DMIC (Developing mathematical inquiry communities) maths successfully, they require the language to be able to understand a story which launches the mathematical problem, they require the language to be able to participate in discussions (through listening, asking for clarification, and sharing their own ideas) and they require the language to be able to understand the thinking of their classmates or the teacher. Finally, learners require the language to be able to successfully work independently for a length of time when they are not working with their DMIC group and the teacher.

Up until now, my focus for inquiry has been on those learners who are working towards Early Stage 6, where they are beginning to use a wider range of strategies and are beginning to use multiplicative thinking to solve mathematical problems. Over the last couple of weeks of term 1 and into the first 4 weeks of term 2, I have started to notice that those learners who are working towards Early Stage 6 are able to learn in two distinct ways. They are able to be the teachers of those who are using lower level strategies and they are able to be the students by learning from those in their group who are using higher level strategies.

However there are a group of learners (at a range of different levels) who do not talk much in their problem solving groups. They may not be talking for a range of reasons. Maybe they do not understand the story or maths problem so don't know how they can contribute. Maybe they see the other students as more knowledgeable so don't see the point in contributing. Perhaps they are quite happy sitting back and allowing the others to do the work for them. Or perhaps they want to contribute but don't have the language to be able to do so. In any of these ways, there is a problem. As the teacher, I am finding it challenging to know how to best assess these learners and keep track of their maths learning when I am not hearing them talk. Moreover, it tends to be these same learners who are challenged to complete their learning independently when they are not working with me so often I am not seeing much independent learning to gauge how they are doing. 

This compares to previous years where I have had a strong gauge on these learners through meeting in small ability groups. Through these small ability groups, it was possible to distinguish varying levels of ability to mathematically reason and share thinking with an explicitly more differentiated teaching strategy. 

Links:

- This booklet gives an idea of the amount of vocabulary we are expecting learners to know.

- This booklet gives a lot of ideas around vocabulary acquisition in mathematics

- Some more maths vocabulary

So where to from here?

- I need to be making a note of the key learners who I want to target in terms of developing their language acquisition so that they can successfully contribute to the maths learning through DMIC maths.

- I need to be deciding on a way to assess these learners. At this moment in time, these are the learners who I will be testing through GLOSS so I have a clear idea as to where they are and any progress they have made.

- I need to be thinking of how I can better differentiate for these learners to support them. Perhaps I could be placing these learners into the same DMIC group to encourage some of them to talk. That is, I should ensure I am not putting these learners with a very vocal student otherwise they may not get a word in.

- I need to be encouraging these learners to explain their thinking during independent learning time through such tools as screencastify.

- I need to be gifting vocabulary for different areas of maths.

End of term 1 Inquiry Update

Manaiakalani CoL Achievement Challenge: To lift the achievement in maths for all students years 1-13. As I am in a Year 5 space, my focus is on year 5 learners.

As stated in my previous inquiry blog post, my focus this year is going to be on how I can lift vocabulary knowledge through mixed ability grouping by encouraging maths discussions. This term has involved trying many new ways of teaching maths. I have really enjoyed it and have seen learners be both challenged and have the feeling of success.

What did I learn from my DMIC mentor? 

Suggestions:

- Sit learners in a semicircle, already in their group so this reduces the transition time to begin working on the problem after the launch.

- Remember to set up the group norms every day.

- Leave learners as much as possible to problem solve independently of the teacher in their groups.

- Based on what I, as the teacher, have observed, choose a couple of groups who can report back to the rest of the whole group (about half of the class) - use of student voice. Plan the groups that report back intentionally so the follow up makes sense to learners and follows logical steps.

What isn't working yet?

- General classroom noise has made it difficult to launch the problem quickly and successfully for all learners.

- A lot of time seems to be spent organising the groups before we have even started. It is challenging to set up the rest of the class (who will be working independently) so they will remain focused for the whole time I am with the other half of the class. This could require some rejigging of the way maths is run. Perhaps we start with a whole class warm up task then I meet with the children who will be learning independently whilst the children who will be learning with me on that day are completing their 15 minutes of Maths-Whizz. In this way, those children who will not be with me on that day will have the opportunity to ask any questions they may have about the learning they are to do.

How am I going to measure vocabulary knowledge/ acquisition in maths discussions?

- Screencasts - recording group discussions which can then be put onto learner blogs. This could either be done during the problem solving or as a follow up task as a group.

- Learners leading the Connect. Pick groups which can follow on from each other to explain strategies to solve the problem.

- Rubric - learners to mark themselves on how well they worked as a group/ contributed to group discussions.

- GLOSS test (term 2) - how well can learners explain their thinking to a problem. Compare this in term 4 to see if the level of explaining at a certain mathematics stage has changed.

- As I walk around, I could be noticing any vocabulary which I am hearing. These could be written down on a word wall and then discussed at the end of the DMIC session.

Beginning of year Inquiry Action Plan

This year, I am continuing to focus on the Manaiakalani CoL Achievement Challenge, to lift the achievement in maths for all students years 1-13. As I am in a Year 5 space, my focus will be on year 5 learners.

My focus this year is going to be on how I can lift vocabulary knowledge through mixed ability grouping by encouraging maths discussions. This will fit in well with our school-wide PD with Dr. Bobbie Hunter on DMIC (Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities) maths. I am interested in seeing how DMIC can support those learners who are beginning to develop multiplicative thinking (working towards E6).

It will be important to teach the learners talk moves which they can use in their groups. I want to think about how I can encourage these children who are developing multiplicative thinking to be both teachers and learners (supporting those who are yet to develop multiplicative thinking, and learning from those who understand and are confident with higher level multiplicative-proportional part-whole thinking). 

What am I doing so far?

Currently I have been exploring the use of DMIC maths in class and have really enjoyed it. I have been creating problems which are meaningful to the learners and launching these to ensure all learners understand the problem. 

Learners are then placed in to groups of four where they work on one piece of paper to solve the problem. The rules are:

- Everyone in the group should contribute in some way.

- The group is not finished until everyone in the group has some understanding of what has been done and can contribute to the explanation. 

I found it interesting that in many groups, one person often did the work and the others sat back and took the opportunity to switch off or get off task. I have therefore began teaching the children to be able to step in and say 'Can you please explain that to me? - I don't understand what you have done' to begin encouraging them to talk about their learning without a teacher stepping in. 

End of year Inquiry Summary

Here is my inquiry summary. This year, my inquiry has revolved around finding common teaching and learning approaches which are important for a number of students in year 5.

- Thinking multiplicatively (learning and understanding times tables).

- Giving students lots of opportunities to reason mathematically.

- Mathematical vocabulary - gifting this to students and exploring it as a new language (just like we do with coding).

- Reflecting on their learning - getting students to realise when they didn't get something right and encouraging them to ask the 'why' and make changes.

Noting these common approaches has resulted in a strengthened understanding of the pedagogy, deeper thinking around how to teach students in effective ways, and exploring different tasks and approaches to engage students and strengthen connections between prior knowledge and new understandings.

I look forward to beginning the 2018 school year with this new knowledge to effectively support students in their mathematical development.

Music and fractions

Music lends itself nicely to learning about fractions. In fact, rhythm and beat is all about fractions! Therefore, I decided to teach fractions through music.

- Lesson Link
- The task

It took a while for some students to grasp the concept of this, however when they did, they were able to make strong connections between music and fractions. Many students were really motivated with this problem solving task and persevered until they correctly answered task 1 and 2. 

I think the turning point for students grasping understanding of this was when we played a clapping game and students realised that the total always had to be the same length of time. That is, 1 semibreve had to last the same length of time as 4 crotchets.