Researching the why...

 Why am I inquiring into maths this year?

Manaiakalani and school data (see previous blog post on why this is such an important area of focus for our school).

ERO: Keeping children engaged and achieving in mathematics (February 2018). In this report by ERO (Education Review Office, NZ), it is mentioned that PISA data shows that in high school, there is an "accelerated decline" in maths achievement (page 2). 

LOTS of research arguing that ability groupings is not the best way to teach maths. The group of children I am working with are working with me because they all show an understanding of their multiplication facts. Is this ability grouping?? I don't think it is as within this group which I see, there are still children at a wide range of abilities within maths. I am also only seeing this group for 1 hour a week, so they continue to go back to their own classes for the rest of the week's maths classes. I would be interested to know if anyone considers this to still be ability grouping.

Strategies to be implemented, according to the ERO report:

- Mixed ability grouping - the group I see have been selected for a particular purpose - to move them from having times tables knowledge to being able to apply this knowledge. Within the group, there is a range of students with differing levels of times tables knowledge so it is therefore still a mixed ability group.

- Use of Talk Moves (Revoicing, Repeating, Reasoning, Adding on, Waiting)

- "Engaging in authentic mathematics tasks" (p12)

- "Developing children's confidence to share their strategies and learning." (p12)

- The structure of learning that I am going to be following is similar to that used by a school mentioned in the ERO report (page 36). This is where students get an opportunity to use their prior knowledge, be modelled new learning and then a chance to apply knowledge.

- I found it interesting that in the ERO report (pg43), they talk about a case study class who use multi-ability groups however the class to begin with has children with "similar needs." When you look at our school and class data for the spread of maths needs and levels, it becomes clear that we may need to do things a little differently.

- Page 49: "Developing children's confidence to share their strategies and learning."
                    - Two Challenges: (1) Reluctance to share ideas  (2) Needed to slow down and think
                    - Intervention: Introducing Talk Moves, Introducing Visual Prompts ("What is the important                          information?", "What do you have to find out?", What operation / strategy are you going to                          use?) 

- Page 56: A poster to support maths problem solving:

Effective Pedagogy in Maths (Glenda Anthony & Margaret Walshaw)

- One suggestion they have is to give students "independent thinking time." This is something I have not yet explicitly included in my intervention but I think it is worth adding in. Their argument is that children need time to think the question over without their thoughts and ideas being confused or warped by those of others.

- Another suggestion is to build learning from mistakes that the children make. 

- They talk about "making connections." I think this is a valuable thing that I am incorporating into my intervention. The whole idea with how the lessons with these children are structured is to support them in making connections in maths.