Maths Inquiry

Notes and reflections on our Maths Inquiry for this Year. We have been working alongside Honor Ronowicz and she has given us a few ideas on what to focus on.



Short Refections on the PD. This was feedback that I provided for Honor.: It has been wonderful working alongside Honor and having her support me through my teaching of maths. I can see the importance of giving the children a voice, especially those that very rarely have that voice, or when the only voice being used is the teacher's ( yes I am guilty). By doing this they are building on their knowledge and understanding on mathematical concepts being taught. The use of talk moves is a great way of eliciting children's ideas as well as getting them to be active listeners and hearing the different methods of solving a problem. For my students who need extra support, it has given them more confidence when they are presented with a maths problem. Ideally we want these children to have a love of maths. This is a work in progress, one I am sure will have positive effects on all learners over time.

Looking at National Standards and what they would look like at each level has been very informing also. It has definitely helped me when making my overall OTJ.

SOLO refresher on Teacher Only Day

Notes taken from our TOD. Solo refresher with Pam Hook. We managed to plan/ implement SOLO into out concept for next term: Globalisation, with the context the Olympic Games.

To be honest I felt quite bad that we hadn't used Solo in the classroom at all this year. Our students have been learning their way around the use of a chrome book and google apps for education.
This PD gave some good tips of ways of re introducing SOLO back into the classroom.

Problem Solving

As part of our team's Maths Inquiry, we have been looking at the benefits of teaching children how to problem solve.
Last term it was my responsibility to find research that proves this.

Taken from

NZ Maths

Benefits of teaching children to problem solve:

• It bases students’ mathematical development on their current knowledge;
• It is an interesting and enjoyable way to learn mathematics;
• It is a way to learn new mathematics with greater understanding;
• It produces positive attitudes towards mathematics;
• It makes the student a junior research mathematician;
• It teaches thinking, flexibility and creativity;
• It teaches general problem solving skills;
• It encourages cooperative skills;
• It is a useful way to practice mathematical skills learned by other means;
• It is similar in approach to the way that other subjects are taught in primary school.

Problem Solving Strategies to teach

Levels 1 and 2

• Draw a Picture
• Act it Out
• Use Equipment
• Guess and Check

Levels 3 and 4

• Draw a Diagram
• Act it Out
• Use Equipment
• Guess and Improve
• Make a Table
• Make an Organised List

We also showed/ taught the different methods of problem solving and used this unit:

Maori language Week

For maori language week we have been learning how to say what day of the week it is in Maori.

K te aha tenei ra? ( What day is it today?)
Ko te ______ tenei ra. ( It is __________ today)
Rahina ( Monday) Ratu( Tuesday) Raapa ( Wednesday) Rapare ( Thursday) Ramere ( Friday).

We also learnt some hand games this week. The kids did look highly engaged.

Middle School Sites

We are using Google Sites as a platform for parents, teachers and students to view their earning for the term/ week. Link to Middle School Learning Site.
Our syndicate have been planning collaboratively to ensure that our learning engagements are at the right level for our students.
In our classroom I have found that our planning for reading has been going extremely well in a shared learning space. The children are getting better with knowing where exactly they need to be during guided reading sessions.
Next term, myself and the teacher I am team teaching with are hoping to get our Maths programme running successfully just as our reading programme has been going over the last term.

Pasifika Fono

In term 2 I lead a Pasifika meeting for parents that were able to make the meeting.
We have 34% of our PI students on our At Risk list. 

What are my goals in supporting our Pasifika learners?An ultimate goal is to have a group of Pasifika parents meeting regularly (x1 a term) where we discuss how we can best support our Pasifika students, may be through highlighting Pacific Island Language weeks, more expertise in song and dance for our PI group, or having information evenings for parents to support their children at home.

I am sure when our school gets this up and running we will see improvement in achievement outcomes of our Pasifika learners. As the saying goes " It takes a village to raise a child."

Mindlab Assignment

For the last Mind Lab paper " Applied Practice in Context" we had to critically reflect on specific topics outlined.
A blog was created and each week we had to post our reflections and thoughts.
I enjoyed this paper the most as it unpacked many realisations I had never thought I had in me. I now have a clearer vision of what I would like to achieve in my leadership roles. See blog link above for more information.

Mindlab Assignment.

From our Literature Review, we discovered that the use of Digital tools have positive effects on student learning. Our next assignment was to plan an inquiry based on the information we found from our review. This inquiry focused on our priority learners specifically our Maori learners and how we use digital tools to cater to their learning needs. 

Here is the link to the blog that my group and I created. We worked collaboratively nutting out what we wanted to accomplish from our inquiry. We considered our stakeholders ( students/ parents/ teachers/ community) and how they can be involved to ensure positive gains were being made for our Maori students.

From this I acquired knowledge and understanding of how to be more culturally responsive in my pedagogy and also how the school is doing this also. See blog for more details.

Commenting on blogs

Today I asked children to comment on their learning buddy's blog today via the middle school sites links  Links to all class blogs. It was a great way to help the children to understand that their audience is not limited to just teachers and parents. From my studies at Mindlab I found that commenting is a powerful means of engaging children in their learning as well as giving them an authentic audience that will give them meaningful feedback. My next steps are to scaffold the children through the commenting process and hopefully, they can then become the experts and encourage their parents to do so too.