My maths focus experiment was to try and guide and support a group of learners through strategy and knowledge workshops. I chose to do this as they were often self conscious and lacked confidence in their abilities, always relying on using algorithms and they had very little knowledge of other ways to solve problems. The strategies I used for this group were used with the habitat as a whole and have led to some significant changes in attitude and abilities within our habitat.
Firstly, we decided to organise our strategy workshops as a series of steps that followed learning progressions. Each fortnight we have one strategy to focus on and three workshops that work at different levels with different sorts of numbers. Workshop 1 focuses on the stage 4/5 level of the strategy, workshop 2 is the stage 5/6 level of the strategy and workshop 3 is the stage 6/7 level of the strategy. During each session the learners are put into the workshop that best suits their learning (determined by a pretest) and half way through the session they have the choice to continue practising their capability in that level of the strategy or move to a different workshop to build on it. This has given our learns a great deal of ownership over their learning and has made them a lot more self motivated. The learners who started at workshop 3 are given the opportunity to practise their capability by teaching someone else.
The other thing we have done is add more materials into our workshops and knowledge sessions. In all workshops materials have been available, demonstrated and encouraged to support the learners in building new knowledge. We have stressed the importance of using materials even at stage 6 and 7 of the curriculum and have encouraged different ways of using materials.
Thirdly, we have used a lot of mixed grouping for problem solving and encouraged learners to teach and learn off each other.
I'm am super dooper excited about this new way of structuring our maths learning because I can see the buzz it's creating amongst our learners and how much confidence it's giving them.
Hi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a very focused experiment targeted to meet identified needs. You say that this approach has given a 'great deal of ownership' to the learners, cool, what does that look like/what have you ntoiced that makes you think this? How have they reacted to the increased choice? use of materials? groups for problem solving? How would you compare this to what you did previously? What was the impact in their words? This is a really interesting way to organise the workshops and I'd like to learn more. Perhaps you could link in some of the design/learners work to evidence this? Ka pai to you!
Cheers,
Di
Hi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI like how the learners had the opportunity to stay or move to another workshop. This would have required them to reflect and take action based on how they felt they were coping. Everyone using materials sends a positive rent learning styles and for many facilitate greater understanding and hopefully lead to"wow" moments. Really neat to see the growing confidence in your learners' approach to maths.