DMIC PD 26/2/18

We had a PD session on DMIC in our staff meeting on Monday where we practised working on a maths problem collaboratively at different levels.

Key messages from the session were:
- The maths problem needs to be challenging enough that no one child can solve it on their own - they need to work collaboratively.

- The teacher needs to have high expectations of all students.  These can be used to motivate - e.g. 'I'm going to give you a really tricky problem because I know you are capable.' This can empower children.

- The problems need to be engaging.  For example use a cultural context or something that the children are into.

I found it useful to have the facilitator clarify some points about how the maths lesson should be set up and structured.

- The groups should be pre-organised and written into the modelling books.  Year 0-2 children should be in pairs, or if a child is a non-counter, buddied up with two counters.

- The half of the class that is not working with the teacher should be engaged in quiet, meaningful work, but DMIC does not specify exactly what this is.  It could be a problem they have worked on with the teacher the previous day but with the numbers changed.

- The warmup is not a chance to teach the strategy that will be used in the problem but a chance to work on number knowledge etc.  It can be something unrelated to the problem, for example choral counting.

- The teacher should keep a journal with anecdotal notes about how the children approach the problems.  This 'professional noticing' helps teachers to understand where children are at.

- Maths planning should be shared in team meetings.

- Role playing can be used to set up the routine parts of the sessions - for example children can role play speaking in a clear voice to the class (and what happens if they mumble when presenting).

- For juniors, when a group is presenting, the teacher draws what they are saying.

- Connect back to the big idea at the end.

- Connect to the context - if the answer is '435' - '435 what?'

Positive norms posters

Some brainstorms my class did about what Jo Boaler's positive classroom norms meant to them.

Observing maths in Room 9

I watched Karen S. teaching a maths lesson in her Year 3 class.  I found it valuable to see practical aspects of how she set up the lesson.

Karen had the problem set up in modelling books for the groups to use.  The problem was: "Mrs Schwenke bought 3 groups 15 currant buns from the market.  How many currant buns did Mrs Schwenke buy altogether?

Karen put the children into 3 groups of 4 and got them to explain what was happening in the story.  She used the 'talk moves' language, saying "Can I revoice it for you?"

When the children understood what the problem was about they worked with their groups - Karen chose who was going to be the writer for each group (everyone wanted to write).

When it came to presenting the answers Karen put the children into lines.  When a group was presenting and drawing circles on the modelling book she asked "What do the circles represent?"  I thought this was a good idea, making the connection that the circles represent something from the problem.  Karen was encouraging, saying "Well done for being brave and attempting this," reinforcing positive attitudes towards maths.

After the children had presented their answers Karen made the connection that the problem could be represented as 3 x 15, which was the same as 15+15+15.

Lilianne reminded the children about splitting numbers, that it could be worked out as 3x10 + 3x5, so 30 + 15 = 45.  She reminded them that this is called the distributive law.

Takeaway:  I liked the way that Karen glued the maths problems into modelling books to keep track of them and so that the children could read the problem close up (one of the maths mentors mentioned that this affects their processing of what they read).  I liked the way she set up her groups with everyone sitting in lines and a specific job in the group for each person.  It was good to see the way she used the language from the talk moves and that she encouraged the children for being brave and standing in front of the class, acknowledging that it could be difficult to do this.  

Observation 29/6/17 - Maths

I watched Siale’s maths today in Room 7.  Half the class were doing repeated addition with her and the other half were working on independent problems.

First, Siale revisited the group norms and reminded the children that the norms apply to any group, like a sports team too.  She used humour - “Remember we are family, don’t let the little red hen do all the work” to reinforce this.

The class were doing a repeated addition problem.  “If Anzac had $2, then his nana gave him $2, then his uncle gave him $2, then his mum gave him $2, how much money did he have altogether?

Siale asked questions to clarify:

“What is the problem about?”

“Who is in the story?”

“What did she (Mum) do?”

“How do you know?”

“How many numbers are there?”

“What’s it called?” “Repeated addition.”

Then she said “Ok.  Let’s attack the problem.”

I liked the way she asked questions that drew out the children’s thinking.  

After the children had worked on the problem for a while, Siale rang a bell to signal it was time to stop.  I liked this non-verbal signal - it reminded me that I could use my bell for this.

I also liked her reminder for putting away the pens - “Lid on, pen down, lid on, pen down.”

Two groups presented their answers.  Siale was careful to position them so that they weren’t blocking the board.  After they had explained their answers she brought the rest of the class to the mat and talked to them about repeated addition and how that can be represented as multiplication, the ‘x’ sign meaning ‘groups of.’  She got the children to role play making 6 groups of 2, and 2 groups of 6, showing the reversibility of these factors.  

She then modelled place value in this kind of problem - “If you know that 2 + 2 = 4, you know that 20 + 20 = 40, 200 + 200 = 400 and 2000 + 2000 = 4000.  

Takeaway: From observing this lesson I saw the power of getting children to role play the problem, giving a visual representation.  It was interesting to observe Siale’s careful questioning and this has given me ideas about the way I will launch maths problems in my class.