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.
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