Term 3 Update

 This term, has been action packed with so much amazing learning! We began looking at the properties of 2D and 3D shapes and I was so impressed with the level of understanding that my students were beginning to demonstrate. We continued having lots of whole class mat time review at the beginning of our maths sessions and it was evident that confidence amongst the majority of the class was soaring!

As we moved into symmetry, rotations, tesselations and translations, it was great to see the students across all learning levels embrace using and understanding the new vocabulary. We had lots of fun looking at and then creating our own shape patterns. This was fun because it allowed students with lower "number knowledge" to be successful in a different way. 

We kept meeting in small groups to continue to develop our understanding of place value, using place value blocks as needed. We did a lot of review of adding 2 and 3 digit numbers and near the end of the term, we began introducing subtraction and even some place value multiplication to those who were ready. I love having those "light blub" moments in my classroom when something finally clicks with an individual student, and we have had many of those moments during this term. 

It is lovely to see students confidently working in mixed ability groups and helping each other by discussing the process to find the outcome. Students really enjoyed moving into algebra as the term came to an end, and since we started out with shape/colour patterns our lower level learners were once again able to be successful by achieving that initial launch into the topic. 

I am looking forward to next term, and our end of the year assessments to see exactly how much information the students have retained and the growth in these areas. 

Term 2 Inquiry Update

After our initial "launch" lesson, we have been working very hard in mixed ability groups to complete our learning tasks. I have noticed that my students are developing a stronger sense of confidence when they are able to discuss their learning with their peers. Students who were already working at Year 3 are now able to accurately discuss their thinking process and many working at Year 1 and Year 2 are becoming more confident asking for further clarification and help as needed. 

The next class session (or near the end of the class session), we regroup as a whole class and work our way through the task together modeling how to solve the problems. This has been exceptional especially for students realising how to use our multiple posters to skip count aloud when problem solving with fractions or converting from cm to mm. Many students are now able to use the posters to problem solve independently and others are now able to make the connection between skip counting and solving problems using multiplicaiton. 

It's been good to see that there has been a positive shift in student learning levels during the first half of the year (as seen on the graphs below). There were only 7 students out of the class that did not shift in learning levels. 

As the year progresses, I will be working to continue to provide opportunities for my students to continue disucssing their thinking and building their own confidence in maths. I am very keen to work with the group of students at Year 3 to solidify their understanding of problem solving with numbers to 1000 while building a deeper understanding of place value to help in their problem solivng. 

Making Music with Suno AI

 As part of the Maniakalani Cluster Create PD, I attended a workshop led by Fiona Grant (Manaiakalani Facilitator) about using the AI program Suno. We had fun exploring what key words to add into the program to have a song created by the AI. I then, took my song and embedded it into Adobe Express Animator to have an avatar sing my created song. Here is my final project. 

The video below is from Suno and shows the lyrics to the song. 

Summarising the Challenge

 Summarise the challenge of student learning you plan to focus on in this inquiry.

Focus Question: How can I effectively build self-efficacy in my maths students to enable them to clearly share how they got their answer?

The past few years, I have put my teaching inquiry focus into reading and through my inquiry (combined last year with the Manaiakalani RPI programme) I have really found some things that work best when promoting students to feel that they are "allowed to be aloud" when sharing their thinking with others.

I'm hoping to be able to bridge that same principle into my maths class especially when working with my students who are just below year level. This year, I have a lovely group of six students working at Year 3 during term 1 and the beginning of term 2. 

The graph below shows their Mathematics PAT score from Term 1 of this year. The red line, shows the average score for a Year 4 student on this standardised test. 

As you can see, four of the six students scored at or above the average, while two scored just below the average year 4 student. However, I have noticed that when we are working in a small group, they are very happy to write down their answers but they are not as confident explaining their thinking or sharing their answer orally. 

This year, my maths class currently consists of 24 Year 4 students who are all working below year level as of the beginning of the 2024 school year. It is my intention to bring these 6 students up into a Year 4 maths group by the end of term 2. This will allow them to continue to grow in their understanding and end the year working "AT" year level before moving into Year 5 in 2025. 

PES PD: Maths With Fiona Fox

Today, the teachers at Pt England were once again able to spend some time working with Fiona Fox (Manaiakalani Maths Facilitator). We had a lovely time looking at the importance of subtising, promoting fluency and sequencing/developing mathematical strategies. Fiona brought along a wide variety of maths games that we explored in our year level teams. It was a great opportunity to look at resources that are available to us to implement into our weekly classroom plans. 

Subitising

-Using Number talks (show for 3-5 seconds)

Fluency

-Being able to provide mathematical answers instantaneously without having to think about it.

Sequencing and Developing Strategies

-Foundational Facts

-5 Frames

-Doubling

-SKip Counting

-10 Frames

-Arrays for mult/div

-Mulitpication Loopy

RPI Graduate

 Well done me! I have completed the Manaiakalani Reading Practice Intensive and earned my certificate of completion and badge. Now, to be sure that I remember everything I have been taught. 

Thanks once again to Naomi, Georgie and Toni for their amazing facilitation of the programme. 

RPI Day 9: Sharing Reading

 Sharing: Tohatoha Manaiakalani Pedagogy

 

“Work with learners to establish an authentic audience for their learning outcomes.”

We are very quick to share the movies we watch, or online content, but sharing what we are reading is not something that we are as quick to do. Manaiakalani wanted a way for the students to have an audience for their thoughts/opinions of the texts they are reading.  Blogging is now the primary way that we “share” our learning with the wider world. Instead of saying, “Be sure to blog your learning,” change it to, “Be sure to SHARE your learning.”

Participating in a Reading Community

Reading for pleasure: Being part of a reading community with shared values, interest, context and participation and intentionally (as the teacher) create a community thats “fosters shared contributions of akonga, kaiako, whanau, & a wider community online, in a valued reading practices.”

How are we already planning to include share opportunities for our students in our everyday learning? This is something to have a good think about. I know my students share their learning to their blogs but are they sharing with each other and using time to engage in providing feedback to their peers? I know this is something we have started to do but how can we make it an everyday (or every week) planned activity next term and perhaps earlier next year?

Visible Reading and Learning

Blogging Kaupapa is indicated on the blogging checklist, and how to correctly make a blog post.  However, it is important for us to remember that these are the kids’ blogs and they should have some ownership around their blogs to share their life (and educational) experiences. 

Feedback and Reflection

Success criteria might push the disposition of the students into new uncharted areas of literacy. It does not always have to be about the product. When providing feedback to students, they should be able to voice where they are now in their learning and where they need to go next (generative feedback→ feedback/feed forward for the future). Quality of the feedback is critical to step students into those next steps. It needs to be specific, not simply a “good job” or “well done you!”

Peer feedback needs to be scaffolded and introduced in a way that sets up students for success.  

What is your system for providing feedback? It needs to be meaningful and purposeful for the learner. 

This is a great reminder of 3 ways to provide specific types of feedback to students. 

Learner Collaboration and Connection

Part of sharing is collaboration and it is an important skill of life. In order to have others care about what you are sharing, you need to care about what others are sharing. Students need to realise this and we need to help create a reciprocal environment that allows students to do this. 

When listening and responding to reading, our digital affordances come into play. We have many ways to easily have this happen in our learning spaces using their Chromebooks. This is also a great time to bring paired reading into the class with students providing feedback for each other. How are partners chosen and do we have a place in our timetable for this? 

To Do: Revisit our reading learner’s survey from the beginning of the year. When would be a good time for our follow up survey, and which questions should I include?  This is something that I need to do and collate the data to compare to the responses I received at the beginning of the school year.

When blog commenting, and responding to comments students will hit multiple times the various aspects of literacy that we always want to enable our students to communicate. 

More realistic view of the blogging literacy cycle. 

Sharing with Whanau & Community

How can we help foster opportunities for families to have deliberate connections to hook back to home what we are reading in class. 

Currently, in my classroom, I encourage students to read a chapter each night and discuss what they have read with a family member. I also encourage them to read their chapter with a family member (taking turns reading aloud depending on their reading level). Many parents I have discussed this with have also appreciated it when I have encouraged them to read texts in their first language with their children and have discussions to carry over those reading and comprehension strategies. 

Moving forward, it would be fun to have whanau share the books (like a 2-3 minute book chat) they have read together on the student blogs. This might be something fun to do over the term 3 holidays for some fun prizes. Hmmmm….

And that's a wrap....

Wow! While filling out our teacher survey about the Pillar's of Practice, and the RPI Survey, I was genuinely amazed at how much we covererd in our 9 days! I spent some time looking back over my blog posts while answering the questions and there is such a wealth of information shared on my blog (and tucked away in my Google Drive) from this course.

A massive thank you to the Manaiakalani RPI team who facilitated our cohort. Also, a big thank you to Georgie and my "group 2" peeps for all the encouragement, laughter and drive to be the best group in the cohort always done first.