Insights from the initial MPI Pilot Sessions

I'm excited to share some snippets of the new Maths Practice Intensive (MPI) that we're piloting this term and that will be launched for the first cohort from term 2.

Day #1. We began by looking at the pillars of practice - the integral components of the effective maths programme. 

We also highlighted the importance of fostering a positive learning environment for maths, nurturing creativity and integrating cross-curricular opportunities for real-life application. Exploring the concept of teachers seeing themselves as mathematicians, we recognised that this perspective can lead to a transformative shift in our approach to designing our maths programmes and opening the door to a more dynamic and engaging teaching style. This shift can instil confidence in both teachers and students, promoting the belief that everyone has the potential to excel in maths.

Day #2. We explored a range of formal and informal assessments to fully understand the available tools and practical implementation of Assessment for Learning (AFL). We practised analysing PAT and e-asttle data and engaged in coaching conversations about how to use this data wisely. The emphasis on sharing assessment data with students and incorporating self-assessment tools in our teaching was also discussed. The program encourages us to reflect on how often we allow and prompt students to reflect on their learning and whether we are tapping into their self-driven learning potential (student empowerment).

Day #3 was all about practical aspects: long and short-term overviews, timetabling, flexible grouping, lesson planning, and organising for group discussions (group talk). It was great to give it a go and solve a 'low floor high ceiling' problem ourselves in breakout spaces, followed by sharing with the big group. This activity will be useful for teachers' learning as it encourages thinking about their own mathematical knowledge, ideas, gaps, next steps, and resources they might need for the lesson, etc. I loved that Fiona used Talk moves with us, letting us experience how our learners would feel and behave; "revoicing" definitely made me refocus on the group conversation. Another practical aspect of the programme is "gifting" well-designed and pre-planned task boards ready to be used in class. Finally, we shared some resources for independent activities that might enhance students' learning experiences and help develop fluency.

To conclude, I'd like to emphasise that every part of the programme is designed with robust evidence in mind and backed up by research. Throughout the programme, teachers will be referred to relevant readings to deepen their pedagogical knowledge and better understand why the offered approach is effective.

 

Calendar Booking Page

Kia Ora teachers!

I am excited to work with you this year. My COL days are Thursday and Friday. This Term, I am part of a new MPI (Maths Practice Intensive) pilot, working with a collaborative team every Thursday. I am available on Fridays this term. Please click and book any of the time slots available on my calendar booking page below:

Calendar Booking Page Link

I am happy to meet in person or online, or support your teaching in class. I would appreciate it if you let me know what support you are after following the booking, so I can come prepared and utilise our time effectively.

Please check this blog post for some ideas of how I can help you, but there are no limits. I look forward to getting connected with you and supporting our tamariki to thrive with their learning!

Improving Teacher Practice and Accelerating Student Learning in Mathematics (TAI 2023 presentation at Burst & Bubbles)

Since 2021, my inquiry focus has been on improving teacher practice and raising student achievement  in Mathematics. Over the past years, the Maths achievement data has been consistently concerning across many Manaiakalani schools at all year levels. Furthermore, the issue of students underperforming in math has captured national attention.

At the start of the year, I discovered that almost 90% of our new Y3 students were working below and well below their expected levels in mathematics. Their Term 1 PAT results confirmed the data I collected during other summative and formative assessments. This group of students became my target group, or I prefer to call them my control group, as I always strive to deliver the best teaching to all students. 

After analysing the school-wide T1 PAT results, I engaged in several professional conversations with my school leaders and teachers. We decided to adopt a more data-informed approach and redesigned and restructured our maths programmes across all year levels. We ensured a well-rounded focus on both Number and Strand, employing an integrated curriculum and fostering student agency.

I’ve been actively involved in supporting my school and other COL teachers by working on understanding various assessments, analyzing and using data for more effective planning. 

I've supported a number of teachers and teams by discussing and collaboratively reviewing their maths programmes, by selecting the best resources for teaching different concepts, compiling and sharing practical resources, for example, maths-integrated Matariki resources for L1 to 4 of the curriculum, by observing lessons, providing feedback, unpacking it and planning next steps. 

To share my expertise and passion for this subject, I provided in-class support by both modeling and co-teaching maths lessons.

This year, I’ve had the privilege of working as part of the Maths design group, with the goal of launching a new maths PLD program next year. I've already volunteered to pilot this program in Term 1. I really hope that this new Manaiakalani initiative will support our teachers in growing their capability and love for teaching mathematics.

To conclude my presentation, I’d like to share the end-of-year Maths PAT results of my targeted Year 3 cohort (Y3 learners in my class achieved 18.6 gain).  We filtered the data analysis by "same students only" to compare apples to apples. The group achieved a gain of 17 points, compared to the national average of 9.2. This difference translates to nearly 2 years of progress and means that, with my team, we successfully accelerated their learning in Mathematics.

AS COL support provided in 2023 (with a focus on Maths)

This year, I have been privileged to support and collaborate with the broader Manaikalani community to enhance teacher practice in Maths. This included working with individual teachers, teaching teams across Y1-8, COL colleagues, school and Kahui Ako leaders, and the Maths Design Group. I also provided support for our RTLB colleagues.

Here is a snapshot of my AS COL support:

      

Team Feedback on Maths Programme and Team collaboration this year

This year, I've had the privilege of leading a team of five enthusiastic Y3-6 teachers. It has been an interesting and sometimes challenging experience with a lot of changes: we welcomed some new team members who felt more comfortable teaching literacy than maths. I heard them say, 'I am not a maths person,' multiple times. Furthermore, most of our team had to learn the curriculum for new year levels they hadn't taught before.

Thinking of the wisdom of the famous saying, "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn," we involved our newbies in team planning. I believed that involvement and shared responsibility would be the keys to transforming their perception of teaching Math.

I have been always available to model, co-teach, observe, explain maths progressions and resources, help with assessments, etc. Two of my team members had never planned for Year 5-6 maths (Level 3). I supported them by initially planning for those stages at the beginning of the year, gradually passing these responsibilities to them as they developed more knowledge and confidence.

Throughout the year, I observed the need for a universal planning template. So, in Term 3, a new universal planning design emerged, simplifying the planning process and enhancing our teaching and providing consistent learning experiences across our classes. You can read about our planning here.

Last week, I collected feedback from my team, seeking their insights and perspectives on our collaboration, teacher capabilities in maths and areas for improvement as we always strive to provide the best for our learners. Some findings are below:

Did collaborative planning help you deepen your knowledge of the maths curriculum and better understand progressions (stages)?

Teacher #1: Yes- I think the strength comes from different perspectives and how everyone approached the planning of the math curriculum. Elena led the team effectively, ensuring each member knew which progression they were planning while always providing support. This helped us grow stronger in planning, understanding the Maths curriculum and progressions, and how to teach Maths effectively.

Teacher #2: Yes, with having to plan all different stages it deepened my knowledge of the progressions as well as the maths curriculum. I was able to look at what my team had planned which allowed me to have access to more resources. As I had come from teaching year 3 & 4 I had never planned stage 6-7 before which at the beginning of the year I found challenging. With Elena's support and using my team's planning, I was able to gain a deeper understanding of what these stages looked like for all different strands etc.

Teacher #3: I think for me personally (as a fairly inexperienced maths teacher), planning my own lessons has allowed me to deepen my understanding of individual stages one at a time. If I was to have planned for all stages at the same time, I would have likely become overwhelmed. I now feel more successful and confident in teaching maths.

Did team planning help you feel more comfortable and confident when teaching maths?

Teacher #1: Yes! I love that I can bounce ideas off from my colleagues and that I can ask for advice in a safe space. 

Teacher #2: I love the evolution of how the planning templates have developed. Elena was mindful to support her team (most of whom were relatively new to teaching) and as such the planning templates helped to scaffold understanding of concepts and delivery. Even for someone with experience like me, I found them so useful! 

Teacher #3: Absolutely. Now I feel so much more confident teaching maths, I really enjoy working with Elena, Team Kea and using our planning format.

Teacher #4:  Yes, it was great to use the same structured format and also have others' planning as an example when completing my own planning. 

What do you like about our collaborative maths planning and the changes that we made this year?

Teacher #1: As a newbie! I love it, it made planning ahead so much easier and you can find planning and tailor it to suit the needs of our kids. 

Teacher #2: At the beginning, when we started teaching from each other's plans, I found that different teachers’ plans varied to some extent and I found different planning layouts confusing. However after Elena suggested the new planning format and explained it to us, I better understood how to plan for a good maths programme. I loved our Term 4 strand planning idea, I found it extremely helpful having the resource bank of plans that we can use and to slot it into our own classroom programs when needed. 

Teacher #3: I love to plan on the slides, it’s interactive and it is visually appealing. It was great to have  same expectations across classes and maths stages. We also often reflect back on what worked well and what didn’t, which helps improve our maths planning and teaching (since we learn from our mistakes).

Teacher #4: I felt like the pressure of planning was reduced by a significant amount. I wasn't spending all weekend finding/ creating resources and lesson plans. Now with our planning, we are able to put more thought into our lessons and explicitly teach. I find that our learners are getting more out of each lesson and the design is easy for them and the teacher to follow. When I had my student teacher in class, she commented on how easy she found our template and how she found it easy to follow other teachers' planning. 

As a team, we also reflected on the implementation of Maths Matrices to empower our students. 

All of us witnessed the positive impact they've had on empowering our students and engaging our students' whanau. This experience has reinforced our commitment to continue using Maths Matrices next year and beyond.

Optimising Maths Programme: a comprehensive Weekly and Daily Planning Approach.

As we're approaching the end of term 3, I'd like to share my team's innovative weekly and daily planning format, designed to make our maths program transparent to all stakeholders: teachers, relievers, students and whanau. Through collaborative efforts with my team, we've refined our approach to create engaging learning experiences that are visible, accessible, rewindable, practical and efficient. Explore our format, complete with built-in formative assessments and easily accessible teaching and  learning resources. Our planning promotes academic growth while enhancing teacher capability and subject knowledge, nurturing student agency and strengthening connections with whanau.

The structure of the weekly and daily planning has been working well for our year 3-6 classes. Students are seen twice a week with a flow of purposeful activities to practice new concepts and maintain their maths knowledge.

Built-in assessments. Using ARBS, ixl.com (but it can be any math program, including StudyLadder, Splash Maths, etc), book tasks and Figure Me Out activities, teachers are collecting rich evidence of student progress and identifying their next steps - built-in formative assessment for learning.

This structure also allows for visible, accessible and rewindable learning. From my own experience, the students who were absent from school used this planning to continue learning and work on the same topics as the students at school. I only had to do a couple of quick workshops to support them when they returned.

Revision and review. This planning helps to review and revisit the topics when students are working independently on their own maths goals (self-reflection and teacher feedback)

Reliever-friendly. Relievers were also able to pick up this plan and continue to teach according to the weekly plan with limited learning interruptions.

Whanau feedback is also positive. Parents have commented that they know exactly what the kids are learning, and, according to some parents, this format has helped them better understand their child's math education (which was an interesting comment).

Planning explained:

Causal Chain - Improving Teacher Practice and Student Outcomes in Mathematics

I've thought through my Causal Chain to identify the specifics of my inquiry and gain a deeper understanding of how I've been supporting teachers and improving student achievement. 

I'm very excited to be part of the Manaiakalani Maths design group. It's been amazing to experience the team's passionate commitment, deep knowledge and inspiring energy. I eagerly anticipate our continued collaboration and the transformation of our ideas into a practical PLD led by the research team - the PLD  that will truly make a difference for our teachers and learners. 

Free Digital Maths Games and Interactive Resources

Recently, I have been updating my collection of purposeful interactive websites for my learners. These websites offer free resources for different maths concept development and practice. Here are a few of my favourites:

Maths Games https://nz.mathgames.com/ is a fantastic free website offering interactive maths activities for primary students. It covers various topics, including number knowledge, strategies and strands. Additionally, the website provides video explanations that help students learn from their mistakes. While Math Games offers a premium option, there are still plenty of valuable resources available at no cost.

Mathantics https://mathantics.com/  is a collection of lessons created specifically for teaching math concepts through animated videos. These videos are visually appealing and easy for our young learners to understand. Not only can students benefit from watching these videos, but teachers can also use them to refresh their own understanding of a topic.

Maths Is Fun https://www.mathsisfun.com/ (Free with a subscription option) is a user-friendly website that offers interactive games, puzzles and explanations of math concepts. These resources can be used as a modelling tool for Number Talks or guided lessons. 

BBC Bitesize  - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/z826n39 (free) provides a diverse collection of interactive math games and activities suitable for primary students. While some resources are available for the UK only, the website still offers great content for New Zealand classrooms, including a variety of free basic facts games.

By incorporating these interactive websites into your classroom program, particularly during independent purposeful practice, teachers can effectively enhance students' math skills while keeping them engaged and motivated.

Have fun learning and teaching maths!

Manaiakalani TOD

Today, we had great opportunities to connect with many Manaiakalani educators and engage in numerous discussions about effective practices for teaching literacy. With the support of my team, I led a CREATE workshop where our group explored toys from both the past and present. We had a blast learning about different types of toys and then had the opportunity to unleash our creativity by making our very own toys. We had a lot of fun learning, creating and playing this afternoon! 

Please feel free to visit my presentation below, which includes a multimodal site "Toys and Games Then and Now".

I am passionate about improving teacher practice to raise student achievement and engagement in Mathematics!

Recently, I was asked by a few teachers to describe some main elements of Effective Mathematics Instruction. I reflected on my teacher practice and classroom programme, referred to the literature and identified the following main components of Effective mathematics instruction:

• Developing positive norms: growth mindset, mistakes are great, productive struggle etc - developing positive mathematics learner identities.

• Systematic and explicit teaching of new concepts

• Use of different best-suited visual representations (manipulatives and/or digital tools)

• Developing mathematical discourse and reasoning (Number talk using Talk moves, problem-solving)

• Problem-solving in flexible learning environments: groups, mixed-ability, pairs or individual work 

• Teacher and peer feedback 

• Creating opportunities and allowing time for deliberate practice in order to develop students’ ability to transfer their knowledge and skills and be able to apply them in different contexts

• Student agency - teaching students to use choice boards and maths matrices to set up maths goals, self-reflect and practise

• Integrated maths activities, developing creativity in maths

This list might be overwhelming for some teachers, especially if they are at the beginning of their educational journey. Let's start with 3 steps:

1. I suggest beginning with establishing positive norms and developing positive mathematical identities. Why? Because your learners have to feel confident to make mistakes and learn from them - mistakes are part of maths! Here is a great website to teach your students about Growth Mindset: https://ideas.classdojo.com/b/growth-mindset

2. Plan at least 1 hour for learning Maths every day four or five times a week. Maths is better to learn in the 1st or 2nd block; however, you can still do some integrated activities in the afternoon (measurements, tesselations, etc)

3. Use various manipulatives and visual representations to teach mathematics. Use digital tools to make maths visual.

Remember, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”. I wish you all the best on your teaching journey!