improving_learning_in_mathematics
This resource has been discussed and recommended by a lot of teachers, so I’ll want to keep this prominent on my list of useful things pages. In the meantime I want to read through it and reflect on the ideas behind it.
The main idea is to shift learning from passive to active, and from transmission to challenge. The resources aim to connect different parts of the subject, and confront and challenge misconceptions, rather than avoiding them.
To make the most of these resources, I will need to develop a teaching style that: uses prior knowledge effectively to choose appropriate challenges; help learners to clearly see the purpose of the activities they are doing and how they can work together to achieve them; give learners the confidence and desire to share ideas and reflect properly on the ideas they and their partners produce and alternatives; remove a ‘fear of failure’; use challenging questions and effective group work; and draw out and connect the most important ideas in a session.
For me, some of these will be easier than others. I think through careful work I can identify prior knowledge and help learners to see the purpose of activities, especially through a good intro to a topic. The booklet suggests a single written question – I think I could do this in a more interesting way – key will be open questioning and giving learners confidence to say all that they know.
Giving learners the confidence to share ideas and reflect on them will be, I think, a big challenge. The booklet suggests the use of posters (warts and all) as a good way to do this.
My questioning should transfer well from language teaching, as will the use of group work. On questioning, I need to ensure I reserve judgement on open questions to avoid inhibiting other answers. Interesting, the resource highlights that for group work to be effective group goals need to be combined with individual accountability – the resources should help me to see how to do this.
To draw out the main ideas, I need to get more confident in my own mathematics knowledge – although I think this will come quite quickly once I’m in the classroom.
The resources themselves will help to challenge misconceptions – I think this is also something I’ll be able to do quite well once I get into the habit of it. Writing common misconceptions on the lesson plan and/or scheme of work will also help I think. One thing I want to get into the habit of is encouraging and addressing misconceptions rather than avoiding them. Ways to reduce the fear of getting things wrong can be pairs work and also asking pupils to mark anonymous work.
‘Exploratory talk’ in groups is clearly very valuable, but I’m not quite sure how this will work in practice – one to come back to I think.
The booklet recommends against starting with simple tasks and moving to more complex ones, because it acts against generalisation. This is an interesting concept, which is new to me. I’ll need to keep this in mind when planning the structure of lessons and schemes of work.
Types of resources recommended include:
- Classifying objects
- Interpreting multiple representations
- Evaluating mathematical statements
- Creating problems
- doing and undoing processes;
- creating variants of existing questions
- Analysing reasoning and solutions
- Comparing different solution strategies
- Correcting mistakes in reasoning
- Putting reasoning in order
Whilst the resources offered in the pack will be useful, I can also use the ideas contained within the booklet to create my own resources along these lines.
One thing that reading this booklet has taught me is that my mathematics knowledge just isn’t up to scratch yet. I need to do more on this – perhaps I can ask Teach First for some advice.
The whole resource is really useful and I’ll want to refer back to it lots when I start teaching – something for the good examples file I think.
Weekly Maths 