Developing collaboration skills to improve learning experiences and achievements

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence.

The research shows that problem-solving, reasoning and proof, communication, connections, and representation–can be seen in action in a discourse-rich mathematics community as students interact, question one another and convey their understanding. 

After analysing my students' Term 1 data, I also had a few formative observations and conversations about their learning. The students enjoyed maths but didn't feel comfortable with 'harder' questions. I have a group of boys who are extremely competitive and want to win - no matter if it is a sports competition, a game or a maths question. I had to reestablish our maths class norms by talking about productive struggle, the purpose of solving problems, collaboration and team encouragement and support. He waka eke noa! We are all in this together!

I also believe that after two bumpy years, my students had no opportunities to develop their collaboration skills. You might wonder why is collaboration important in maths class? Because maths discourse is one of the powerful components of an effective maths programme. Along with the high leverage practices,  mathematical discourse improves students' critical, cognitive and metacognitive thinking, develops their key competencies, maths knowledge and skills, and contributes to their better achievements across the curriculum. My students needed to learn how to collaborate and engage in mathematical argumentation. I must admit that by this time, they started to collaborate together to learn and grow from each other. They also noticed that they have lots of fun working together.