DMIC PD 2: What Does a DMIC Lesson Look Like?

Today we had our second PD session about DMIC Maths with Bobby Hunter. Here are some notes from this session:

In general guided lessons, who is doing the teaching? Who is doing the talking? THE TEACHER...we need the children taking control of the learning and the teacher facilitating THEIR discussion.

Setting up routines:

• Begin by using problems that are not at grade level in order to get the kids used to talking. Once you start to see wins in your routines, and talking groups...then move things along.
• Everyone in the group needs to be working in a way that allows for them each to be critiqued.
• Everyone needs to be struggling in their effort to learn something new. 

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We, as teachers, need to be working on the possibilities of what they should know instead of focusing on what they don’t know (and filling gaps).

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When kids argue...Talk about how you are not disagreeing with a person but you are disagreeing with an IDEA. Also, it's ok to disagree, just understand you are only allowed to if you are able to express why you disagree.

Setting Up Your Class for Group Work

1. Social and Strengths groups...these are not friend-based groups. They are groups of students that you know will work well together.
2. Class is split into halves-each half seen on alternative days. However, always have one group of 4 that you could see 2 days in a row to give them an opportunity to grow or teach others their different thinking. 
3. Groups of 4 (2 for younger children)
4. One challenging task. If any student can solve it on their own it is not challenging enough)
5. Encourage recording and multiple representations

One Lesson

10 minutes - Warm Up
5-10 minutes - Launch/group norms..need to discuss everyday (values/beliefs & family orientated)
15 minutes - Small Group Activity
15 minutes - Large Group Discussion
10 minutes - Making connections to the big idea* (this is where the teacher explicitly teaches and connects to the big idea*)

Independent Work

• Make it purposeful
• Include elements of choice
• Make the practice related to previous maths focus (problems from previous days, refer to previous problems)
• All students should use this time to cement previous learning.

DMIC PD - Introduction with Bobby Hunter

Developing Mathematical Inquiry in a Learning Community

Today for our teacher only day we are very blessed to be working with Bobby Hunter. She is kicking off our learning journey with DMIC. Here are my notes and wonderings from this sessions.

We need to be developing children who are doing the thinking...not just listening.

There is a common misconception in NZ that Pasifika children come to school ‘not knowing anything’ when it comes to maths. However, the truth is that they know a lot of applied maths (setting the tables, laying out the mats, cutting sandwiches into fractions, etc).

It is important to provide current cultural context for our students. They may be Samoan but they are living here! It is important to remember that Culture and Mathematics are one and the same. Every culture uses maths in context. 

When writing problems always ask, “Will my students be able to relate to this question?”

In order to bring the cultural aspect into a classroom you MUST look at the values held by you and your children/whanau. Instead of saying “work as a team” rephrase to “work as a family”.

DMIC-Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities
Connected, rich mathematical thinking and reasoning
Proficient use of mathematical practices
Inquiry learning within mathematics
Social grouping and group worthy problematic activity
High expectations and inclusion
Culturally responsive teaching and learning
Co-constructing teaching and learning

Struggling in Maths is a good thing:-It is important to let the kids know that the problem is hard...it is ok to struggle and work on it over a few days.

Important Mathematical Practices

As a teacher, it is important to add on the “because” when reacting to student involvement (eg. “That was a really good question/explanation because…”)

Talk Moves are important for promoting student interactions when discussing student explanations. (eg. why? how?). If every teacher made their math problems a level or two higher than where the students are achieving, our maths scores will increase dramatically.

Making a claim/conjecture:
Taking time to hear and acknowledge the conjecture (jot it down) and come back to it at the important time
Developing a mathematical explanation
Justifying thinking
Constructing arguments
Generalising a mathematical idea
Representing mathematical thinking using pictures, material, and numbers
Using mathematical language

Teachers need to always use the problem context to make the explanation experientially real.
Active listening and questioning for sentence making
Discuss and role-play active listening
Use inclusive language “show us’, “we want to know”, “tell us”
Structure the students explaining and sense making section by section
Emphasise need for individual responsibility for each other.
Encourage students to listen to (and look at) the student who is presenting.

Only work with about 12-16 students (in groups of 4) at a time and then rotate. This will allow for students who don’t quite get it to join in with the other group the next day.

Maths PLD with Jo Knox

We have just finished another maths PLD session with Jo Knox.

Here are some of my reflections on this session:

• Is IKAN a worth while assessment without some changes made to how you administer the test? We have found that the pressure of the test - the speed of the test, someone reading it out, etc - stops children from being able to show what they can actually do. We have trialled a few different ideas with changing how it is administered. For example, slowing the speed of the test down, giving children the opportunity to choose one or two questions to change after they have completed (but before marking). I think with these changes we might see better results as the children will be more comfortable.
• Aligning the NZ Framework and NZC was a highly valuable task for our teachers. The numeracy project has unfortunately given teacher an unhealthy reliance on stages of maths rather than the knowledge of maths. Consequently I think teachers have lost some of their knowledge of the curriculum and are therefore not as equipped to led mathematical conversations with children. 
• Gloss - is this an assessment of the past? I think it might be from the mainstream of assessment as all it's looking at is the strategy use of the children - not their understanding of mathematical concepts.
• Lastly, I feel as though we need to get a better understanding of an effective teaching cycle and what that can look like in the classroom. 

Teaching as Inquiry - Graeme Aitken

Today as part of our Leaders PLG we had the honour of listening one of NZ's godfather of Teaching as Inquiry - Graeme Aitken! I was blown away by his passion and knowledge. Here are just a few of my notes from this session:

Collaborative Inquiry - An approach to teaching

Often teaching is only about adjusting the learners rather than adjusting my teaching.

Goals as a teacher:

Creating interest, creating confidence, creating achievement

• Bigger evidence of raising achievement
• Less focus on creating interest and joy

To do this we need to:

1. Take stock: add to the data we have of achievement

• Current state
• Student experience 
• Data story: tools to help with this

How to do this:

• Scan
• Can you describe what you are learning and why?
• Where are you going with your learning?
• Name two adults in this school who believe that you can achieve
• NZCER me and my class
• ERO well being survey

2. Focus on the solution

• Defining the problem
• Create focus

• Add the correct next steps to help solve the problem - create the write strategy to solve the problem
• Could be measuring the wrong thing??
• Our best guesses about a fix, then test it. What do we need to learn to aid our best guess?

3. Take action

• Test hunches
• Share successes, failures and improvements
• Discuss whether or not we have made enough of a difference
• This can only happen with trust…
• Got to think about incremental improvements
• It's ok, to make mistakes but not ok to keep on making mistakes

4. Maintain momentum

• How do we spread these ideas
• How do we get other teachers/classes to do the same?

Google Suite - Tips for Efficiency

Dave Winter and I have put together this presentation to help make your use of the Google Suite more efficient. This includes tips like: shortcuts for making a copy of a google doc, Using quick view instead of opening a doc, Shift Z... it is your friend and many others!

How To: Hapara Teacher Dashboard

A tool that we use daily in Manaiakalani is the Hapara Teacher Dashboard. However, I have become aware that many of our new staff here at Pt England have a very rudimentary working knowledge of Hapara Teacher Dashboard. Through taking a number of toolkits and one-on-one sessions with teachers I have decided to make a screencast so that teachers are able to come back to it. Please feel free to use this with your teams/staff.

2017 Inquiry: Broadening Extension Maths Learners

How do you effectively broaden the understanding of an extension maths student, particularly number knowledge and the application of this, in a way that is engaging and effective.

In 2017 for my inquiry I have selected the following Manaiakalani Community of Learning achievement challenge:
#4. Increase the achievement of Years 1-10 learners, with a focus on Years 7-10,  in reading, writing and maths, as measured against National Standards and agreed targets.


The teaching as inquiry framework I will be using in 2017 has been specifically co-constructed for Manaiakalani schools using our familiar Learn Create Share structure.
The elements in this framework share close similarities with other models New Zealand teachers use.

I will be labelling my posts as I update my inquiry throughout the year to make the content easy to access.

Label Key:

LEvidence	Learn - Gather Evidence	CPlan	Create - Make a plan	SPublish	Share - Publish
LScan	Learn - Scan	CTry	Create - Try new things	SCoteach	Share - Co-teach
LTrend	Learn - Identify Trends	CInnovate	Create - Innovate	SModel	Share - Model
LHypothesise	Learn - Hypothesise	CImplement	Create - Implement	SGuide	Share - Guide
LResearch	Learn - Research	CReflect	Create - Reflect	SFback	Share - Feedback
LReflect	Learn - Reflect			SReflect	Share - Reflect