Maths - Adjusting attitudes and approach

For the past 17 weeks Rua students (along with Tahi and Te Motu) have been participating in a project called ALiM - Accelerated Learning in Mathematics. Before the project began, teachers looked at learning and attitudes in our classrooms, and thought about what changes we could make in our classroom programmes. We ended up focusing on some common areas.

Focus 1. Collaborative Problem Solving
We wanted to change students' attitudes about their maths abilities. We wanted them to realise everyone can contribute to problem solving discussions in maths, and we can all learn from each other.

To develop this idea, we looked at grouping students in different ways. In Rua we ended up having children work in pairs on problem solving exercises. 

The pairs change each week allowing students to be exposed to different ways of thinking. There is also no grouping according to 'ability'.

To get the system working, we spent a lot of time in term two looking at the school values of Kindness and Unity.

It takes time and effort to move from the idea of being 'first and fastest' to sharing thinking and working together to build an answer. To start with there were complaints of buddies 'hogging the pen and whiteboard', not contributing, or simply wasting time. However as time has gone on, I've started to see more and more examples of collaboration. Children turning to each other and discussing a problem, or turning to a partner to support them as they figure out an answer, rather than telling them the answer. And at the same time, students' maths thinking has become much richer and deeper.

To recognise this wonderful work, Rua received the Unity trophy in Term 3, Week 5's assembly.

Focus 2. Choosing problems that stretch all students' mathematical thinking.

Identifying patterns is a key skill in maths. 'What do you notice?' problems like this one stretch children to look beyond the obvious (one shape is coloured in) to see all the ways that the shapes are the same and different. They're also great confidence boosters for students who don't believe they're good at maths, because they don't involve numbers.

Problems with more than one right answer. The 'Noah' problem shown here was great for stretching student thinking. Rather than one answer there are multiple possibilities.

Real Life Problems. We participated in the New Zealand Garden Bird Survey, and used our results to look at different ways of sorting and displaying information. Rather than tell the students what sorts of graph to use, I had them organise the information how they liked. Then we looked at the advantages and disadvantages of different displays for answering different questions. (Each square represents one bird).

Problems requiring different approaches. The Eggs in Baskets problem was a real challenge. Students had to try different solutions and see if they met the criteria. Some students who are traditionally strong in maths struggled, because they couldn't come up with a quick solution. Other, less confident students, did better by taking a methodical approach.

Focus 3. Learning and practising number knowledge and facts. To support students with their problem solving, we looked at; counting in 2's and 5's, adding and subtracting 10 from numbers, and learning doubles to 20.

Students also practised their skills playing games and solving puzzles.












What was the impact?
We shared our approach with other schools from the Wellington area at an ALiM impact day on 21 August. Target children made progress in their mathematical understanding and skills throughout the Tahi, Rua and Te Motu. The mathematical focus for the children has started to shift away from mathematics as a set of known skills and remembered knowledge and towards a discipline of inquiry and knowledge building.

What's exciting for me is seeing the development of richer and deeper mathematical thinking across the whole class. WOW!!!!

Want to do fun maths at home with your children? Click on the photo below for some great ideas.