Assessment
Every second Friday we have been doing a pre-test. This includes ten questions from various maths stages, all of the questions come from the planning sheets on NZmaths. After the pre-test Lisa and myself mark them and put the learners into workshop groups based on what their gaps are. Over the two weeks we run workshops that focus on the strategies in the pre-test and each workshop has a slideshow that accompanies it. The slideshows are uploaded to the class Google site for learners to access for capability practise and to support their further learning after the workshops.
Daily 3: maths with someone, maths on my own, maths writing
We have been encouraging daily 3 with our learners and have a display on the wall to support the language of daily 3. We have found though, that many of the learners spend all of their maths time playing card games or on Mathletics. The card games they are playing are often snap or last card so they are not gaining much or practising their capabilities. Following
Mathletics & Digital Tools
Learners are required to earn 2000 points each week on Mathletics (this number was decided on by the learners). Activities are set for them that align with the workshops they have been, or will be attending. They have been given time in class to work on Mathletics however we are finding that many of them are only doing Mathletics and nothing else so at the moment we have limited it. We are also finding that around half of our learners are not doing Mathletics at home.
We have not started using Studyladder yet however I think next term we should look into this. Some of the stage 5 activities on Mathletics don't align with the strategies we are teaching them (lots of algorithms which they shouldn't really be doing at stage 5) so it would be good to use Studyladder to fill this gap.
Moving Forward
It'd be good to find a way to keep our workshops going but make them smaller, less learners in each one so that we can use materials more easily. Also I'm keen to build in a bit more repetition for those learners who find maths difficult and need to repeat the same skills many times in different ways.
Hi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your reflection. I like how you have brought the pre-assessment in, in order to determine what the learner's gaps are and to be in a very clear position to measure progress.
Questions:
-How is problem solving being integrated into your maths program? Strand inclusive problems are essential to mathematical literacy.
-How will the workshop groups be made smaller?
-How is learner choice and autonomy being accounted for in this program?
Consider:
-checking out these two resources (c/o Vanitha my mate from Cognition):
1.Digital Maths Resources https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gHTWsFq0N2rs9WvcrcOYze1cRVuBWBZ2f4VGYhotxSs/edit?ts=57030248
2. Problem Solving Presentation https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q-Afg5ZHO4fIRWvOXjKGEXohvzyL3MpYFmVmUsolfE4/edit#slide=id.g8213e7e03_0_196
-setting up learners on e-ako as another 'Maths By Myself' option
-how can digital technologies enhance engagement in maths learning?
ideas...
repeated exploration of ideas-->video each others maths thinking - Show Me, weebly/wix
learners to bring their prior knowledge to the class-->use of padlet or popplet to mindmap
shared work and collaboration-->Google docs, blogging, wikis, Etherpad, Storybird
choice of pathways for exploring / showing learning-->Educreations or ShowMe or Littlebirdtales or ScreenChomp, google docs, blogs, .
the introduction of new ideas-->Presentations,teacher demonstrations on Educreations/ShowMe/Littlebirdtales/Voicethread (rewindable teaching), youtube,
supporting reflection-->Audio recording (Vocaroo) photod, reflective questions, BLOGS, google docs, Etherpad
Keep up your awesome efforts and good luck with the Prime Maths trial.
Cheers,
Diana