On the 28.5.18 Anna (Mayfield), Rebecca (Chertsey) and I went around a few schools in our Kahui Ako to observe what maths looks like.
Notes from observation trip and discussions.
DATE: 28.5.18 Present: Anna, Lagan, Rebecca
- Mayfield Primary School - We observed 3 classrooms at Mayfield Primary School. First we observed the new entrant class. The teacher was doing a lot of number knowledge practice with the children by getting them to count, add and subtract their notebooks and there was a lot of oral language and discussion – teacher was asking children "well how do you know" and children were able to reply that it looked like the dice pattern etc. Children seemed quite advanced for their age when it came to this math's – some were using counting on strategies for addition! Next was Anna's class which I think was year 2/3? They had a focus on number patterns and were looking at dots and trying to work out how many there were by using patterns instead of counting 1-1. The children were very engaged in this activity and were all involved. In the senior rooms they were working on problem solving using word problems. We noted that the teachers planning looked very simple and easy to follow (shared below). The approach to teaching gave the children a problem and then left them to decide the best way to solve the problem, the teacher would support and then get the children to share back to one another how they solved the problem. All classes within the school use the upside down teaching approach for numeracy.
- The upside-down teaching model - "Teaching upside down involves choosing to first present to students a problem they are expected to mess around with for a while, without having first taught them the particular rules or procedures they could use to solve the problem. Engaging students in this way helps them interact with the mathematics and sets them up to learn the mathematical content the teacher intends. Rather than the I-We-You structure used in many mathematics classrooms today, this model could be characterized as You-We-I: You (students) will mess around with a task for a while, ideally engaging in some thinking, trying things out, and generally wrestling with or constructively struggling with mathematics arising from the problem; then We (students and teacher) will discuss the different approaches students tried, with students explaining, questioning, clarifying, and further grappling with the mathematics; fi nally, I (the teacher) will connect this work and the class’s productive discourse around the problem and related mathematical ideas, facilitating the whole process and ensuring that students come away with the intended mathematics learning. " Smarter Than We Think by Cathy L. Seeley (Scholastic, 2014).
- Methven Pre School - We went to Methven Preschool to observe what math's looks like in an early childhood setting. We observed children playing freely and enjoying their time at preschool. Math's was learnt through play. Blocks, shapes, counting games, measuring etc. There was a teacher playing a number bingo game which children could opt in to if they wanted to play. There was no explicit numeracy 'teaching' however the children were gaining all kinds of numeracy knowledge through their play. It was great to see the ECE center and spend some time seeing where our kids all start out their learning journeys.
- Lauriston School - At Lauriston School we observed a year 3 class. The teaching program being used was Numicon 2. The children were very engaged in this learning and seemed to enjoy using the resources as part of their learning. We observed and addition lesson where the children were learning the relationship between problems such as 3 x4 =12 so 30 x 40 = 120. The teacher was guiding the children through the program following the structure of the manual. The children were manipulating the materials to visually show the problems which they then used to support them in counting for the answer. The children were very familiar with the program and it all flowed smoothly. This seemed like a very structured and easy to follow approach to numeracy.
- Follow-up discussion and next steps - We discussed what we liked and disliked about each strategy and spent some more time looking through the resources for Numicon. We discussed as a next step trying to organize some more observations in other schools in our Kahui Ako.
Senior teacher planning example from Mayfield School
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