"Making Sense and Persisting Workshop" By Deborah Schifter

We were invited to attend a "Making Sense and Persisting Workshop" by Deborah Schifter.  This mathematics workshop using video studies of Grade two and Grade four students demonstrated students making sense of mathematical problems with which they persisted to find solutions and discussed their reasoning and how they engaged with mathematics.

Deborah is a principal research scientist at the Education Development Centre in Waltham, Massachusetts.  Her main interest at present is investigating algebraic thinking at the elementary level.  With other researchers (Virginia Bastable and Susan Jo Russell), she has been studying students ability to reason and notice how they can use their knowledge to solve a mathematical problem and to explain their thinking to others.  She has studied  "a student's ability to notice, articulate, prove, and apply generalisations about the behaviour of the operations."  A sequence of lessons for students in Grade 2 to Grade 5 has been developed and published in their book titled "But Why Does It Work? Mathematical Argument in the Elementary Grades".  (Heinemann 2017).

The book focuses not only on the mathematical content of the lessons, but also on what effective teachers need to know pedagogically to make these lessons worthwhile.  It is not enough to only know and use the content or curriculum.  There is a whole classroom culture that needs to be embraced for successful outcomes.

There are 8 common core standards.  These are
"1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4. Model with mathematics.
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning."

Students need to find "an entry point" where they can begin to work on a problem and to think how or what they can use to come up with a solution.  In junior classes they may use concrete materials or draw pictures to represent their thinking while older more mathematically proficient student might count on.  Asking questions that help them get started and continuing to ask "Does this make sense?" will make the student consider simpler ways to solve the problem.

Once a solution has been reached other options can then be looked at, answers check and analysed using models, pictures, mathematical equations and descriptions.  Younger children might use concrete objects and move these objects while they describe the actions they preformed to come up with a solution.

"Mathematically proficient students can listen to or read the arguments of others, decide whether they make sense, ask useful questions to clarify or improve the arguments, and build on those arguments.  They can communicate their arguments, compare them to others, and reconsider their own arguments in response to the critiques of others."

While viewing the videos and listening to the discussion I was thinking about the DMiC lessons we had been attempting and how we are learning the "teacher talk" to encourage the children in their thinking.  The children in the videos were of course much older than Year One but the level of teacher talk to get the children to reason and think without actually saying "you need to do...." was enlightening.  The open questions such as "Could we say that?"  gets children to critically look at their thinking.  "What are people thinking..." and " "How did other problems help you..." helped the children justify and explain their arguments.

We are just beginning our journey but when you see children working collaboratively to solve problems and to be able to say "I not not convinced."  and "That's the part I'm not sure." to a group of peers and with further discussion be finally able to say "Oh now I see it cause..." makes a pretty convincing argument that this style of mathematics makes children far more engaged in the process of making sense of mathematics and working through to find a solution.  We have a way to go yet but are taking our first tentative steps.

Thanks to Jodie Hunter for organising this event and Koru School for hosting it.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 3

In connecting with the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy this week we looked at the "Create" part of "Learn, Create, Share".  

The create side of learning is all about "the hook".  Engagement is so important as there are many children who cannot find any connection between school, learning and themselves.  In the local area prior to Manaiakalani and digital learning the children either left the area for secondary schooling or couldn't find a connection and left soon after compulsory education was completed without any qualifications that would lead to further education.  Now Manaiakalani schools focus on priority learners - the Maori, Pacifica and children with special needs.  The local secondary school is finding children are engaging and achieving which is a great success story.

So how has this been achieved?  Children naturally like to explore and create things and it is the harnessing of these creative skills whether it be culture, sport or art that "help students become better problem solvers, communicators and collaborators."  (Apple 2018)  In the employment market today employers are looking for employees who have these skills.

We are creative beings and if we do not use the creative side of our beings, we are not using our best learning tools.   Engaging the whole body will naturally engage the mind and learning will occur.  John Dewey's quote about giving a child something to do that is worthwhile not just a task to pass time, and if "the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, learning naturally results" rings true.  

 Creativity focuses on deep learning and original ideas.  An artist can sit in his own studio painting or creating by himself, unconnected with the world.  But how do we know how fantastic his art is?  Add in technology and this instantly turbo charges his artist ability because he is connected with a world wide audience or following who appreciate his wonderful artistic ability.  This is the same with our children who have an iPad or a digital device of their own to use.  They get the chance to be a creator - making their own slide shows, movies, raps or music to help with the "tough learning" and it helps them learn in a more meaningful way. 

Classes with the biggest shifts in their learning have been shown to be classes that have time to create, collaborate and have choices that empower the students when they have the opportunity to create.  It is the learning that is achieved through the process of creativity rather than any concern for the finished product that is important.

These ideas help focus on my own planning and teaching.  How can I make my teaching embrace more creativity?  We have discussed at length within our team that we need to put the fun and exploration back into learning.  This term the science based Inquiry topic and challenges have resulted in a huge engagement, with most children able to tell you many facts they have discovered about Simple Machines.  Now we need to remember to add the digital learning to turbo charge it even further.

Next Kent took the "visability" and "rewindability" to the next level by showing us how to create a live channel and live stream events.  Using a drone to take footage of an event allows a wider audience to take part.  Spectators can see the total cross country race from one vantage point on a screen even though the course winds out on to the reserve out of sight.  They feel more connected with the event.  Kent used a drone to show Pt England school making the Olympic rings last year.  This footage is on my class blog and the children like revisiting this event.  Footage can also be used for team training to review what could be improved or it could be used to make spectacular footage in a film for the Manaiakalani film festival!

Fiona reminded us of the protocols for digital learning and meeting our duty of care to parents, whanau and the Board of Trustees with blogs and accounts administered by the school.  Learners should be using G Drive for their blogs.  It is best to have comments going through a blog which is monitored through the Teacher Dash Board - being in the right place at the right time.

We also learnt how to build and add clips to a playlist to build a resource to support our teaching.  It is best to have it in your name so that if you move schools all is not lost as the channel stays with you.  Sharing with anyone with the link means teams can share resources.

The Goggle Slides component showed that slides can be used to enable learners easy access to their learning.  We use these on our team and class sites make a slide deck for each curriculum area adding a new slide each week.  This enables learners to revisit their learning if they haven't complete work or if they wish to practise a skill again.

Using a slide deck in my class site.

It is easy to share and embed a link to learning content, a text or tasks on the site.  Slides can also be used for the learners to create and not just be consumers.  We looked at some slides which had been used for quizzes,  introduction slides, to explain how to do a task and add facts.

It was enjoyable to have a go at making things move in a slide show and to learn some more skills that could be used in displays.  Command D to duplicate is useful.  To make an object move you need to set up your slide.  Select a background from creative commons or from Explore, then duplicate your slide, click on the object and move it slowly to make the movement as smooth as possible.  Repeat the "duplicate and click on the object" process as many times as is needed.  I can see learning this skill will be popular even with the year ones.

Digital portraits using the polyshape tool were fascinating but the fact that you needed to start back at the beginning if you didn't join it up completely the first time would make some children decide it wasn't for them.  It required patience and a steady hand and for those who had these two ingredients I can see they would be fascinated by creating a lifelike image of themselves, their friends or even to just add another dimension to their art work on a slide show.

We finished the day making our personal pepeha on a slide deck.  As this required thought and discussion to make it culturally appropriate it is still a work in progress and to say it correctly will require much practise.

A lot of learning was packed into another very intensive day.

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 2

It was another intensive day of learning on day two of the Digital Intensive Fluency Course.

In connecting with the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy this week we looked at the "Learn" part of "Learn, Create, Share".  Fiona explained that there is not just one way of "Manaiakalani learning".  It looks different for each school because of the special character of each school.  Some schools serve a specific age group, for example primary level or college, while others are special education or special character schools.  Not only are the schools different but they also serve different communities so one learning style will not fit all the Manaiakalani schools.

But the common connection is the digital nature of the learning and the access we have to a digital learning environment.  It is not just the 9 to 3 learning in one place but learning is "any where, any time, any place".

To implement such a programme it is not enough just to have expensive digital equipment.  It requires major changes in teaching practises.  Existing quality programmes need to be re evaluated.  What is effective needs to "amplified" and "turbocharged" to promote student learning.

Teacher actions will promote student learning.  Students learning is so much more visible in the digit world on their sites.  Teachers are able to provide sufficient opportunities to learn not just once but students can revisit and be reminded of the learning or the tasks.  Feedback is quickly provided and a teacher can look at what the students are sharing, listen to recordings the students have made or see how long they spend on a document and if it is more than the required time see if they need help.  The students are able to access their learning immediately so there is an efficient use of learning time.

So what does learning look like in our schools?

GREAT TEACHING + DIGITAL LEARNING = ACCELERATION

Fiona felt that if there was one magic silver bullet it would be effective teachers not devices.  So in the evaluation of the Woolf Fisher research what is common to all the schools that has resulted in shift and how can we share these pockets of success and spread it around?

When we started digital learning there was some substitution for example a device for paper and pencil but now we need to move beyond this and redefine how technology can support learning.  We need to use these amazing tools to provide solutions to problems and opportunities for new ways of learning so that our students have a voice and they can move beyond the classroom environment and join other and learn from them.

"If its worth teaching, its worth capturing."
"If its worth learning, its worth capturing."

Fiona's presentation had many important points for me to ponder on about how I can use technology to support my teaching and therefore enhance my students learning in my class as well as in our team.

Then we moved on to looking at the uses of Goggle maps and how maps can be integrated into many learning opportunities to enhance students learning.  Tips were shared as to how Google maps can be useful in our personal lives from finding your car in a carpark or to tracking your journey for your family.

I could immediately see ways I could use Goggle forms when we looked at the making and use of such forms.  It could be used to get children to learn basic facts and number knowledge using technology.  I made a simple form on which my students who are having trouble with the concept of "before" could practise this using a number line.

Using Goggle spread sheets to display and analysis information would be a great digital way of displaying the information we put onto 5 week reading graphs that are presently on paper.  This could be manipulated and used in different ways to evaluate the effectiveness of our teaching.  It could also be a way of displaying other information we keep on the children's progress such as alphabet letter identification or words learnt over a period of time.  I hope to be able to make some spread sheets to use this information over the next few weeks.  Fiona also mentioned if we needed help in remembering any of the tips on freezing cells, adding totals, to format dates, hiding columns and autofilling columns there is a good Goggle Help centre.

When Fiona was talking about learning being rewindable I thought about our DMiC maths lessons and how the children often needed reminding of what the story is telling us.  To get the children to actually record what they need to do on their iPads and then to be able to listen to what is required might help focus some of the learners who need to be refocused.

We also looked at how to analysis data and create a graph using data gained from a student's blog.   I looked at how many blogs were done over a series of years as well as when the blogs were done within one year and created two graphs to show this information.  The first graph shows how the number of blogs was a lot more intensive in the first two years of blogging and then tailed off.  This might be due to a variety of reasons and such a graph could be a starting point to discuss with the student how they could be helped to keep up the number of posts.

In the second graph I looked at when the blogs were posted to see if there was a pattern over a year.  Again this could be an important graphic to show a student and remind them "that their voice has value" and they needed to keep their voice alive.

All in all a very intensive day but a very valuable day of learning and thinking about how to use technology to enhance our student's learning and our own practise.

Digital Fluency Intensive 2018 Day One

Today was the beginning of the second course of Digital Fluency Intensive for 2018.

It began with  the Manaiakalani story which is a powerful reminder of why we work to provide our students with a digital learning environment in which they can "Learn, Create, Share". Dorothy's presentation on the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy showed us that so much has been achieved over a short space of time and as we look at the philosophy behind the story we can see that communities and teachers have worked together to make ideas come to fruition.

When using Goggle documents we were reminded to label, organise, date and file work properly.  This applies as much to our private planning and organisation as to getting children to do this.  Taking time at the beginning of the year to teach these skills to the whole class as part of the Kawa of Care is a good suggestion.

Learning how to use new tools in Goggle documents such as a table of contents and headings will be useful in planning and presentations.  The method of making the headings linked to a document  creates a searchable table of contents.   In the break out time we were able to work in smaller groups and revisit this going at our pace and asking any questions which arose. This gave you confidence when we put the learning to use immediately to create a poster and having help to guide you through the steps if you needed it was very useful.

During a discussion on voice text I could immediately see possibilities to use in my Year 1 class for both reading and writing activities on their iPads. Khismira and I discussed possible ways that we could use this for getting the children to publish their writing by having the story "typed" as they read it. It would also make them aware of punctuation as they need to say "full stop". They could then take a photo of their picture if they had already done one in their book or draw a picture to match their work and then save it to their Drive to be put on their blog at a later time.   In the reading EE's that we use, there is a section that the children need to write words from the text. The children who find difficulty writing often find this tiresome as it requires them to transfer words from the text but the idea of using voice text and checking if is correct might overcome this. The use of a clear voice and the idea of recording might help some children actually finish their work.

DMiC Learning

We have continued to practise DMiC maths.  There is a group of children who really enjoy the challenge of solving problems and working together with different people.  They eagerly look forward to maths time and they are extending their maths thinking in different ways.

They can see the need for strategies such as counting in 2s as it is much quicker especially when re counting or checking.  Being able to see patterns is beginning to emerge as a way to solve problems when we change the numbers.  Doubles are another way problems are being solved.  One group discovered how time consuming it was having to go back to one each time to check and recheck until one child said that, "It must be 25 because we have already worked it out."  He then just counted on from 25 without being taught how to do it.  He then shared his learning with the class.

A group of children have also recognised the usefulness of knowing combinations of ten and the idea that "if I know 2 + 3 = 5 then I also know that 20 + 30 = 50" by applying patterns to 100.  These children are able to identify numbers to 100 and they are seeking out patterns.  Others who are not numerate to 10 are finding it frustrating to work in this range and often shout out "a million" to a question they are working on.

They are also learning that it is OK to make mistakes and to rethink their first ideas, or to have different answers and to check which answer is a better one.

Drawings have become less elaborate as they see the need is not for artistic drawings but simple representations.  Some groups will just do drawings while others will check their work using mathematical notations or use a number line.

There are still problems with "passengers" who are unwilling to share their learning or engage in a group.  These children are unsure in their own mathematical thinking and will not ask questions to help with their learning.  They quickly lose interest and can become disruptive.  Trying to re-engage them in simple counting tasks or getting equipment to help their group works for a short time until they lose focus again.  Is this because these children are just not "learn ready"?

The children have not yet seen that they can transfer their learning that they gained in one problem to another.  I also feel that discussions are still too teacher led to get them thinking.  Modelling and revisiting how to ask questions takes up a lot of time but hopefully it will become less time consuming as the DMiC way of learning becomes more familiar.

Discussions With Colleagues

Our recent Inquiry "sharing" session was very beneficial.

Sharing how things are going with our DMiC lessons was a great way to get answers to some of the queries that have arisen in our own practise.  Even sharing with colleagues who teach at a different year level can give you another perspective on a problem that can be modified to help at year one.  It is also reassuring to hear others voicing similar queries that had arisen in the lessons I had taught.

One of my concerns has been how to record the gains the children are making in language.  It is all very well to say I think they are gaining skills and language but I need to have a concrete way of recording this.  The children are very reluctant to talk in front of a camera and clam up as soon as I produce one which defeats the purpose of trying to record them.

Two suggestions were made to overcome this problem.  One was to record them on audio.  The other suggestion was to make a rubric and mark the children according to a grading system devised to measure the outcomes we required.  On reflection the rubric seemed the better option and I will ponder on what outcomes I am wanting.

Reflections on DMiC

Wonderings and reflections after a Dmic session held with a small group.

Do our students need some mathematical knowledge before we begin on Dmic maths?

Is maths hierarchical?  Can we try and interest students by having discussions and trying to solve problems when their basic number concept is weak?  Do we need to go over the basic concepts or can we leap in at a different level and fill in the basics later?  Will peer to peer discussions help strengthen basic concepts?

By giving students a chance to think and remember will they be able to make connections to another similar problem?

Will this method give students the confidence to speak and listen?  This is an important part of the programme especially the pupil to pupil discussions when ideas are "revoiced" or "fine tuned".  How a student says it might make a lot more sense to his peers than the way a teacher says it in a more technical way.  Students can learn from vocalising their thoughts and explaining how they worked something out.

How can I encourage some of our reluctant speakers to become involved, to work collaboratively and voice their own opinions or even challenge someone else's thinking?  Does it give opportunities for all students?  Over time will the students find that they need to gain and use more precise language to express their thoughts to others?

Too often we as teachers unconsciously "confine" our students to one way of thinking.  We want our students to confidently and successfully solve a problem so we carefully scaffold them.  This teaches students that there is only one solution and does not offer opportunities to explore other ways of thinking.  I had to refrain from commenting while the two groups explored the dot patterns and was delighted to hear them discussing how one group got a "little" way of answering and the other group got a longer way.  But they both saw that the answer was still the same.

Changing behaviour takes time and imagination!