Stages of Inquiry (Spirals of Inquiry)
Scanning
Focusing
Developing a Hunch
New Learning-and Reflecting on our Action
Checking
Term 3, Week 1-3, 2020
Scanning & Focusing
Our team is working together to establish an engaging and varied maths programme for our students, which combines the following elements:
* Concept
* Inquiry
* Warm-up
* Independent tasks
(informed by Rob Proffitt-White - see slide 6)
We reflected and discussed maths learning at length as a whole team and began our Team Inquiry. Within this, we have formed teaching partnerships with one other, so we can focus more closely on each individual student. Amber and Lisa began co-planning and teaching, and then shared their planning process with the team in Term 3, week 3. Katie, my teaching partner and I, have developed our own similar plan, using their basis.
Term 3, Week 4-6, 2020
Developing a Hunch
Katie and I are working together, and collaboratively planning maths for all our students. We decided to meet for a formal discussion once a week, as well as daily chats, tweaks and adjustments to our planning. Our whole team inquiry reflection and discussion will also continue. Week 4-5 was spent planning and setting expectations, work areas and organising resources for our students. We agreed a teaching plan, which Katie created as a googledoc (Char and Katie's Maths Planning, 2020), and we established goals for our sessions together:
* Provide a rich variety of learning which engages students
* Provide teacher focus groups / hot spots to support individual learning needs in maths
* Utilise varied groups: independent, pair, small group
* Teach collaboratively, and model games and strategies for each others' professional learning
* Frequent conversations with team teachers, Lisa and Amber, to learn their ideas and observations
* Rich problem solving opportunities (maths inquiry), 2 sessions per week
* Students work with both teachers at varied times
Reflections Term 3, Week 6
Scanning, Focusing
We discussed challenges and strengths of our programme.
Successes
* Maths inquiry / problem solving effectively engages students and allows for varied learning styles and abilities
* We enjoy the collaborative reflection and discussion
* The organisation and preparation of materials is equally shared
* There are shared, high expectations for students around sharing ideas, justifying their thinking and behaving responsibly
* Students are bonding well with each other
* Lots of opportunities for varied groupings and tuakana-teina
* Warm up/tune in games are highly engaging e.g. turn and talk, move it and prove it
Challenges and next steps
* Noise, some students not clear on what independent options are available, space is cramped. Action: decided teaching spaces for hot spot groups, limited amount of independent options so children are clear on what they might do
* Concern that we are not making best use of time to meet maths learning needs. Action: we agreed to take two groups each until the end of term, for independent / hot spot sessions. This will allow us to have a clear idea of students strengths and needs, and address this in hot spot groups. We are working on recording assessment observations.
* Concept: we clarified what this time will look like for us and students, and agreed to focus on subtraction for this fortnight, with open ended and a teacher directed option
* Remember to use an enabler for problem solving
* Set groups for problem solving time (then assess their work as a group; monitor over time)
Reflections Term 3, Week 10
Focusing, New Learning
Again, we discussed observations of children's learning and engagement.
Successes:
* JAM and GLOSS data reveals we have some very able mathematicians. Clear areas for focus were also revealed (see Next Steps below). Some students are working at Stage 5-6. We decided to place these students with Lisa and Amber (who have the Year 3 cohort). They will work with other ability levels on some days and be offered extension challenges on other days.
* Students engaged readily with out 'maths discovery' time the last fortnight, and had scope to work with peers or alone, and choose their own maths tasks. Many students made up their own games using dice, cards and whiteboards.
* Working in collaborative pairs, and talking/planning with our teaching buddy each week is working well. We're sharing observations, developing deeper understandings of students' needs, and ensuring a wide variety of learning opportunities while also covering key focus areas/concepts.
Next Steps:
* Some students need regular revision of core knowledge, including numbers to 100, identifying higher/lower numbers, basic addition and subtraction with materials (stage 1-2 children).
* Charlotte and Katie have discussed student learning outcomes (using JAM and Gloss data) and have decided to split the group into two main teaching groups, stage 1-2 and stage 3-5. This is to give children maximum teaching time on specific areas, to help fill gaps in understanding between now and the end of the year.
* Charlotte will take the Stage 1-2 group, and focus on number knowledge (place value, number size, number ordering), addition and subtraction. Katie will take stage 3-5 and focus on place value, initially.
* Other areas for focus over Term 4, based on JAM assessments: Subtraction by mental imaging, counting back or using basic fact, and fractions.
* We will also organise for Rob (AP) to observe and give feedback on our planning and teaching.
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