Maths Teaching Inquiry PD Reflection

Today we have been looking at our data and identifying our three groups of learners. Those who are above, at or below the national standard. Once identified we needed to select with group of priority learners we are going to target in our first maths inquiry. The key thing we needed to think about was what is their next immediate learning step as these inquiries and designed to be short, sharp, tazered targeted learning that result in realistic and achievable movement of our priority children within or through to the next level.

We have been asked to reflect on the following questions as a response to the teaching criteria 9ii:

I am already above the NS expectation for my age / year.

• What actions are you taking to ensure I continue to work above the NS?

• I am exploring and accessing e learning and hands on games and teaching sites that are challenging and target problem solving (as they are stage 8). These boys love to share their mathematical thinking with each other and challenge each others strategies and problem solving procedures. So I give them plenty of word problems with multiple stages of solution to solve together as they love to use maths speak with each other.

I am already meeting the NS expectation for my age / year.

• What actions are you taking for ME so I continue to meet the NS or accelerate above the NS?
• I hold my children who are at to high expectations as they can become lazy or complacent in their learning when they know they are meeting standard. I do not allow them to resort to lower strategies for ease of solutions and challenge them when they are with me to look at new ways to apply their knowledge to solving a problem in a new or more advanced way. When they are working independently the tasks are far more scaffolded to allow the children to have a sense of success without becoming bored or unchallenged.

I am a priority learner in maths. I am below / well below the NS.

• What actions are you taking so I begin to taste success in my maths group?
• Incorporating fun and interactive learning sites that are aimed at their current level to allow them to feel success, As many children who are below become disheartened easily if they are not managing the tasks difficulty level I leave the challenging tasks and new ideas until we are working together. The teacher group dynamic has been activity set up to be a safe place to take risks and ask questions when in doubt.