Updating our thoughts on DMIC / Inquiry Maths Approaches
Workshop with Rob Profitt-White
An abridged version of Rob's presentation: The Research
An Outline For Maths Teaching & Planning & Learning: Presentation Two
Key research findings:
* Hard / challenging learning is remembered and concepts are retained by students (presuming they succeed through the challenge)
* Students need time to think independently as well as in small groups, in pairs and whole class.
* Students need a range of experiences, i.e. representation / modelling, contextualised (i.e. this includes word problems), and open ended
* Students learn from and need explicit teaching as well as inquiry maths experiences
* Students having a positive disposition towards maths is key. This is nurtured by various factors: appropriately challenging learning, strong teacher-student relationship, risk taking attitude, self-efficacy, teacher belief / parent belief in child's ability, and more!
* Focus on moving students from procedural thinking to conceptual understandings and being maths inquirers.
Recommendations
My goal is to make these things a core part of my / our team approach to maths teaching & learning:
* Start thinking about maths experiences rather than maths problems alone. This can include explicit teaching, games, a task etc
* Always have a go to / next challenge. Add 'can you show this two different ways?' to a problem or situation. Doing so extends and adds in
* Ensure flexibility and variety (learning, resources, grouping variations).
* Have explicit learning intentions which are shared with students: let them know what they are aiming for / learning.
* Display maths language for the current learning, and discuss, clarify, model/act out and use with students.
* Provide daily number practise, ideally at the start of the session - writing, reading, saying or making.
There are 5 Key Elements To Maths Learning
Reference: National Research Council. 2001. Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/9822.
Questions
* How can we up-skill parents?
* Can we create a team plan for what math looks like in Year 1-3 each week? Can we also create a scope and sequence of maths content for the year?
* Currently, certain children almost instantly disengage when faced with a maths problem. How can we/I change our problems, or the way we present them? Can we relax the "DMIC rules" a little, to cater for different needs (I do in my teaching already...). Yes - think maths experiences rather than just maths problems. We can re-broaden the learning again.
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