New Maths: Talk Moves

This year our school is continuing with maths professional development however the approach has changed. Building on the diagnostic approach and direct instruction from the previous year; the new focus is on Problem Solving and Talk Moves.

Here is some of the literature behind the Talk Moves initiative. The main idea is that maths thinking and learning is supported and developed through talk, between the teacher and students but with the emphasis on discussion being student-led.

The five practices of Talk Moves are

1. Anticipating
2. Monitoring
3. Selecting
4. Sequencing
5. Connecting

Anticipating:

How will the students answer the problem?

What strategies might they use?

What might be their misconceptions?

An activity that is likely to increase the amount of time spent in planning a lesson.

Monitoring:

Give the students the problem and then allow them independent thinking time to answer it.

Record the different strategies during anticipating and then using that to record when monitoring what students are using each strategy. Not just watching but also questioning students to check their understanding.

Selecting and Sequencing:

Identify students that have got a correct strategy, although still choosing the students who have common misconceptions and sharing and discussing those answers too. Try to have students sequenced through their different strategies eg. from additive to multiplicative.

Connecting:

The Teacher draws connections between each of the students’ strategies. Highlights different strategies or indicates progression from additive to multiplicative thinking.

This approach seems quite different, noticeably in lesson delivery, than the previous years maths instruction. As such I have identified that I need to focus on my maths instruction and have set the implementation of this approach, merged with the previous years approach, as a goal of mine this year.

New strategies, new knowledge

Flash forward to the classroom.

I was teaching in a Year 7 & 8 classroom with students who were achieving at standards ranging from Level 1 to Level 5, or stages 2 - 8. A massive range for me to get my head around.

My school has identified maths as a specific area of focus and as such significant professional development has been, and is still being, administered for teaching staff. As a beginning teacher in my first year I made sure to make the most of any opportunities to observe maths group instruction, and tried to take full advantage of the professional development we received through a facilitator from Cognition.  

Towards the end of the year I was able to observe the Cognition facilitator deliver the same lesson to year 5 & 6 students and my own students in year 7 & 8. The group dynamics were a big factor in the delivery of the lesson content and the progress that the learners made. To be able to compare the learning experiences of my learners was invaluable.

It was great to see the progression of the learning experiences - knowledge check, use of materials, recording of student strategies, clarifying of maths language, to the co-construction of WALT at the conclusion of the lesson.

Certain concepts were not understood in the session with my learners and so had to be addressed through the use of materials.  There was unbalanced input from only certain members in the group which led to an uneven exchange and the facilitator was not sure of the understanding of all group members.

The discussion post group session involved establishing a group treaty of expected behaviour including not calling out and all members participating. This was a very interesting observation for me, as a beginning teacher, to see how important behaviour and group work expectations are when teaching in groups.

Here is an example of the format and modelling of the type of maths instruction that our school focussed on delivering last year. I have borrowed this image from my colleague Aireen. I was lucky enough to work alongside Aireen last year in a team teaching environment and she continues to be a wonderful mentor for my development as a teacher. This is how I tried to shape my maths group instruction in 2014.

New maths and newer maths

Over the next few weeks I will be reflecting on maths teaching and learning within my own practice. It is a goal of mine this year to focus on and strengthen my maths practice. It is also rather pertinent considering the recent media coverage of the state of maths teaching in NZ.

I have never been strong at maths.

Throughout my schooling I really had to apply myself and put in significantly more effort to understand (or at least utilise) mathematical strategies. I got extra tutoring at high school and asked for help from higher achieving peers to pass Maths with Statistics in 7th Form (Year 13). But I did it, I passed, and I was proud of my hard work paying off.

When I started at teacher training, maths lessons still did not come easy. Maths, as I knew it, had changed. A lot. No more learning rules and applying formulae to solve equations. This was my first introduction to the Numeracy Project. Developing number sense through teaching number knowledge and number strategies. Some strategies I remembered, while often times it was like I was learning maths for the first time. Looking back it was a great experience for me to understand and relate to my learners. It was pretty powerful to have 'aha' moments as an adult learning maths aimed at year 7 & 8 children.

I found that I had to work hard again at maths and again needed to rely on discussion and support from my peers to help me understand the different ways of thinking. It was a great opportunity for us (as trainee teachers) to see how maths should/could be taught in NZ classrooms. One of the maths teachers especially stands out for her fantastic work - Gail Ledger. She made maths interesting, relevant, and fun. Her lessons were wonderful models and she also worked hard to make us all feel supported. Through hard work and help I did rather well in my maths study yet I was still not confident in my maths teaching practice and being able to deliver instruction based on the Numeracy Project.

New classroom, new displays, new resources.

The senior students moved into the new Kia Manawanui open plan learning environment in Week 4. It was a relief to be moving from the hall into our very own space! The students felt quite special to have brand new classrooms and also new lockers to set them apart as seniors. 

The new classroom has lovely high ceilings which leads to lots of natural light in the room but means that ladders are necessary to put any displays up!

As I grow more accustomed to my new classroom I have begun to decorate the walls with resources, learning activities and our students' learning journeys. 

In response to the needs of the students I have created a poster to refer to when posting work on their learning blogs.

The Tamaki Primary and Manaiakalani ethos of Learn, Create, Share is displayed in relation to the literacy cycle here. This outlines the different stages of writing for the students to follow.

Here is our writer's corner with different frameworks and scaffolds for students to refer to - this year the writing genre is recount.

And here are some photos of the actual learning space - this is the year 7 homeroom.

This term we are focusing on focusing how to interact and learn within our new environment. It is an ongoing process and one that I will be reflecting on regularly through the year.

When the going gets tough . . .

Term 1 Week 3

This week was tough.

It was a week of long hours, staff meetings, planning meetings, syndicate meetings and sports trainings. Hot weather and 60 students learning in a school hall with 4 fans is not what you expect for a typical learning environment and this week it was tested to maximum.

In our newly formed Kia Manawanui Senior learning hub, we have identified maths as a key curriculum area to focus on. So this week was about establishing our maths programme as we mean to go along; prioritising maths in our always busy timetable, along with providing more practical activities for the students to work on consolidating and building on their existing mathematical knowledge.

We spent over 3 days preparing a wide range of maths games including; nzmaths multiplication and division board games, basic facts card games, Figure It Out activities and loop cards testing all areas of basic facts. The first 2 maths sessions were introductions to some of the more in-depth games. Activities were broken down and learners were scaffolded to ensure that everyone knew how to play the games correctly and what particular maths learning was taking place. This proved to be very successful and fun for all our learners.

On Wednesday we then moved to group instruction and attempted to carry out instruction in a hall with 6 other maths groups all carrying out their group activities. Let me repeat our current learning environment: one school hall, 60 year 7 & 8 students, 8 maths groups, 2 teachers trying to work with one group each. Needless to say group instruction was rather difficult in this environment. Even with reminders to keep the noise level down, the sheer number of learners all trying to communicate with one another made the whole endeavour rather arduous. 

At least it was a half day as our first whanau conferences of the year were being held. I found it heartening to connect with so many whanau members. Beginning of the year meetings with whanau are about fostering a strong home/school partnership and involving parents and caregivers in their child's life and learning at school. It also helps to make connections with the people who care for and support our students and provide them with guidance on how to continue supporting their child's learning at home.

The key idea that came out of these meetings was that parents were unsure about how to allow their children to access the internet or their netbooks at home. Many were worried about their child going on the wrong kind of sites, or spending hours watching youtube videos. Others did not believe that their children needed to go on their device if they had no school work to do at home. This was interesting feedback in relation to the Manaiakalani Woolf Fisher Research meeting we attending the previous afternoon. Research carried out via parent interviews by Woolf Fisher found the same concerns by many parents along with restricting hours of use at home and concern over appropriate websites to access. From this dialogue I have decided to create a page on our class learning site that will contain a range of different links to learning sites and resource sites that we use in the school already and that will hopefully extend the learning opportunities for our students out of school hours. As a work in progress I value any suggestions or feedback and will post again about the progress of this endeavour.

Being a Beginning Teacher in NZ

I was lucky enough recently to have a wonderful evening catching up with a group of teacher friends from university. We had all graduated from the Grad Dip programme at AU and all come from an amazingly diverse array of backgrounds. We were all taking advantage of the beginning of term and the 'last free time' we expected to have for a while. 

After the congenial chatter died away we moved onto the inevitable topic of being a PRT and what that meant for our year ahead. We reflected on the stark reality of being a beginning teacher and trying to maintain the balance of workload and expectations with any form of a social life. We all know that it is necessary to have a good 'work/life balance' but trying to achieve that balance is a mighty challenge.

I will admit that sometimes feel that I am not cut out to be a teacher. I spend so much time preparing lessons, creating resources, planning, reporting etc. that I come to the conclusion that maybe I'm just not cut out to be a teacher, let alone the kind of teacher I want to be.  I understand that as a new teacher, it is going to be harder, take longer, and be more challenging. Learning any new skill or role takes time and of course is going to be more 'full on'. I love learning, reflecting and improving my practice but at some point you have to stop and think does it really have to be this hard? 

I am fortunate enough to be working in a school with an amazing mentor teacher, in a newly formed learning hub this year. We collaborate and co-construct planning and lessons, either face to face or using the ever convenient Google Docs.  Upon further discussion with my peers I realise how truly fortunate I am to be in a genuinely collaborative and supportive environment. In my first year I reached out for help and advice from my Mentor, Senior Management and peers to help me cope with the workload, behaviour, and classroom management, and they were all willing to give it.

My friends have had varied experiences in their respective schools but the common theme is one of doing it largely alone. Yes they have Mentor teachers who support/advise them to varying degrees but when it comes down to the day to day, they are in their classroom on their own.  One of the biggest benefits I have found from my experiences as a PRT in a team-teaching environment is the feedback and reflective practices inherent within. I am able to unpack my lessons if necessary, review my classroom management techniques and reflect on my teaching practice regularly and constructively with the guidance and opinion of a peer. 

Self reflection is an important part of any profession (I would go as far to say it is a necessity in life) but to do so with an expert other is the true meaning of social learning and Vygotsky's ZPD. 

It would be fantastic if some kind of apprenticeship programme could be developed for beginning teachers, providing the opportunities for PRTs to learn and develop with the aid of an expert other. Experiencing the day to day realities of being in the classroom and what the role of a teacher really involves alongside co-construction of resources and planning would set new teachers up to succeed. Current university placements don't even come close to the real thing. John Hattie mentioned in his talk at last year's Festival of Education that there is an alarming retention rate for new teachers and that many leave the profession within their first 5 years. 

I am thankful for the support and mentoring I receive but it makes me wonder if I am struggling, how are PRT's coping in less than supportive environments?