Maths Talk: Starting off Fresh

Module ONE with Jodi Hunter

What a session! After the one and a half hours that we spent at the end of a long school day on Tuesday, I marvelled with another teacher how a presenter/ teacher who is animated, articulate, and an expert in their field along with effective and purposeful group participation can really stimulate a tired brain.

Here are some of the key ideas and 'learnings' I gleaned from yesterday session.

Prior to attending the first session we were asked to read this journal article.
Reading Link - Questioning
Teacher Questioning to Elicit Students’ Mathematical Thinking in Elementary School Classrooms

A Maths community Includes

• Balance between teacher and student voice - the teacher has an important role in listening and modelling not fully directing all talk.
• Collective thinking
• Multiple zones of proximal development - other children have different experiences and knowledge. Children can call others into their area of proximal development including the teacher.
• Intentional engagement in the reasoning of others - teaching children to talk productively - what does listening look like - not sitting but hearing, linking to experiences, forming an opinion and taking a position

All of this ( the above) requires high levels of cognitive demand. Unless we as teachers start upping the level of challenge in the classroom none of this will work. If children don't need to work together to solve a task there is no point doing it. Give students a task where they need to work together in order to meet the challenge.

A Lesson

1. Conceptual knowledge/ warmup- patterns, numbers after eg. using a pattern and transferring this into other areas... categories of knowledge or concepts, relationships

2. Launch a problematic task

3. Small groups - groups of 4 (3 is better than 5) Half working with the teacher - half working independently.

4.  Large group discussion where students are chosen to share back.

5. Connect - if the idea has not arisen in the problem solving this is where the teacher

Teacher as Facilitator in a Cognitive Discourse 

- Talk Moves ( See link for examples) 

Teachers need to guide the children to enable the cognitive discourse - this is not for the children to use but for the teacher ( children sometimes pick this up and use it too) Talk moves is to find the 'why' in the classroom.

Revoicing - As a teacher start using re-voicing in a purposeful way. Stop and think about what needs to be re-voiced and what not. The purpose: clarify what a child has said or highlight and idea.

Elicitation - ask the students to agree/ disagree and the reason why - needs to be agree/disagree with a reason, get rid off fence sitting - if they don't have an opinion then they need to ask a question to clarify their opinion

Repeat - get the children to repeat what other children have said to give them a purpose for listening. Don't use repeat as a behaviour management strategy use it as a tool to ensure that an important idea is being heard and processed. If a child can't repeat ask them to say 'Can you say that again?' or I'm going to ask you to repeat this idea but I'm going to get 2 other children to repeat that idea first and then come back to you". Wait time is important for 'repeat'.

Wait time - process time, allow children to think before they speak, to process other children's ideas and form their own opinions. Start teaching them to use it with themselves. ( Notice this was used in the choral counting video)

Add On - asking children to extend or add to an idea that someone else has shared.

Choral Counting

Jodi used role play to teach the group how to use choral counting as a conceptual knowledge warmup.

Choral counting notes - when you hear children tapering off stop and go back. Notice the pattern. Start from the top and reinforce the count. Make sure that you give the children wait time to process the first few numbers before you start counting. Tell them the idea is that they are saying this together and not rushing ahead. As a teacher think about what number you start with- check before and make sure how you are going to record it ( rows, numbers)  and what shows the patterns best. If you have repeated the group before from 1 don't start from there again. Start from a different number each time you stop and restart.
You could get the children to design their own choral counts. Teaching - 10 to 15 minute warm up.
Record it on the board - not hundreds board. Prepare carefully first.

Types of Talk

How to engage in productive types of talk:
Working in groups? = lots of unproductive talk going on.
We need to teach children how to talk in groups. Researchers ( Mecer and colleagues - Go and check out their free resources - Thinking Together) tracked children's types of talk and found that unless children were taught how to talk productively in groups they didn't talk productively at all.

Cumulative talk - this is my way, this is my way, this is my way - each child explains their idea, it accumulates but does not discuss or develop any new knowledge.

Disputational talk - 'Oh they think like that because they are the brainy ones' - disputing but not digging deep into learning eg. 'how do you know that?', using paper scissor rock or voting on opinions

Exploratory talk - productive kind of talk See slide: Facilitating Small Group Discussions

Key ideas from 'Types of Talk':
You're challenging an idea NOT another person
It's important to role play how to ask a question or what questions to use. eg. Can you explain that in a different way? pick out the part you didn't understand and ask about that. This is about slowing down what is happening in the classroom and pointing it out. Don't let children give long explanations.
Notice what is happening in the classroom - I notice that ...because...
DON'T ask for volunteers - lack of purpose is not structured to build to a big mathematical idea.
Fallacy - 'So many children think that maths is about getting correct answers and only those who have correct answers have a voice.'

Orchestrating Discussion: Five Practices  

The subheading of this section is also a book - note to self: research this book!

Anticipate - prepare and anticipate
Monitor  - for reasoning and understanding
Think - Who am I going to share back and why? Maybe prepare students for sharing just a certain part - I would like you to share this ( practice sharing this)


A few gems to finish with...

As teachers we should be using wait time but we also want children to be using wait time - thinking before they speak.
Use correct mathematical language and terms
As a teacher you should not be the authority on mathematics or your 'brainy' students. 'Maths' itself should be the authority. ( It's ok to say 'I don't know, lets find out')

Some of the jargon that was used throughout.
Jargon:
Status, discourse, justification, reciprocity - sharing ideas with each other across small and large group, challenge and debate, collective thinking, cognitive demand, conceptual warm-up, problematic task, social/strength based grouping - eg. has a strength in talking/thinking/ listening, low floor- high ceiling tasks, teacher as facilitator, mathematical practices, Number incorporated into strand, cognitive discourse

As you can see there was an incredible amount of content to cover, some brilliant ideas and learning to implement and many things to further research and explore. A brilliant first session!

Emotional Maturity from The School of Life

When do you know you are emotionally mature?

I was recently sent this article by a friend. It was not only a pleasant and thought provoking read but it sat comfortably in my understandings of myself and the people around me. In other words my developing emotions recognised the need and value in many of the points described in the article.

Happy reading.



( Click on the title or the picture to take you to the link )

Maniakalani - Urumanuka - Hornby: Notes From a Chromebook Session

On a blustery Friday afternoon in the holidays most of Urumanuka's senior 'chromebook class' teachers met together to refresh what learning one to one on a chromebook was all about and to get the best routines in place before the start of the school year.

Here are some notes, tips and tricks. Credits to Kelsey Morgan who ran the session and designed collate and built much of the content and resources linked in the the Uru Manuka site below.

All this brilliant information can be found in much more detail here.

Uru Manuka 

Key ideas from the day

Chromebook care:

Have a place to store your chromebooks:
What about chromebooks that the children bring to school as opposed to the ones that stay at school?
- tote trays
- specific shelf
- table area
- dish trays

Accessing chromebooks:
- lining up to collect their chromebook at the beginning or end of the day
- teacher hands out chromebooks
- line on the floor children wait behind the line until one child collects their chromebook
- teacher charges chromebooks

Kelsey's cheeky tip: 

Click the square 'view' button ( square with arrow) at the top of an imbedded slide. In the new window pop into the address, backspace to the last '/' and then type in 'view' or 'edit'

If you put your email on your site a teacher may email you ... this can help for credibility.

Hapara: Things to remember

Use smart share to ensure are in the right folder.

Use Hapara to see all your kids blogs. 

Keep track of who has recently posted. Keep track of who has recently been commented on and make sure that children have been commented on at least once during the week. 

Kelsey's cheeky Tip for blogging: 

Make sure the children (me too) click the 'notify me' button so they are aware when someone has commented. Bottom line- you need to reply and say thank you. Manners people!

 If a child has done incredible work but no one has commented pop it onto google plus and it will get lots of comments.

My task list from this session:

- watch the Hapara workspace video and explore on my own

- record my site video

- make a new class blog and link to the site: make a roster so that the children blog once a week including myself

- link to the twitter feed on the site on the blog page

- teach the kids \ make a list of people they know who they want to comment on their blog, link in their emails, send the email link to one of their favourite people each week.

- make an each week blogging checklist to work through each Friday with the children.

Reading Together - Pasifika Power Up Programme

On Monday evenings I have the privilege of being one of the tutors at the Pasifika Power Up
programme run at Riccarton High School. This is an opportunity for parents and communities
to come together in all ages to talk about education, work on their current projects, have extra
targeted tuition and prepare for exams.

In the past I would tutor the Year 4 - 8s however recently I have been running the reading
together programme with a group of parents who are dedicated and willing to find out about
how to accelerate their children's learning.

Here is my reflection about the course sessions and a collation of ideas from its
implementation.

Throughout the course of the programme it was wonderful to watch as the parents built trust
with one another and gained confidence to voice their concerns with the group and with each
other. A few of the main concerns that were echoed among many of the parents were the
following:

Parents were concerned about their pronunciation and grammar. They realised that especially
with their older children who were more involved with the english language in school and social
activities that their english language was not always correct.

We followed this by talking about the value of their knowledge and cultural capital. That they
were experts in Fijian, Tongan and Samoan and that they could relate to their child by
explaining the word in their own language. The child could balance this by helping pronounce
the word in English. The basis of this however was a safe and settled time for reading and
listening to each other. There were also strategies that they could use such as voice type and
google translate.

Many parents were also concerned about the effect digital devices and their children’s use and
addiction to devices was having on their family life, conversation and reading time. We
addressed some of these concerns in session 2. Discussion mainly supported the key R. T.
point of developing strong routines and keeping the focus on what was positive: a healthy
lifestyle, family time and regular reading times that had clear parameters.

Parent discussions

One of the strong points of this course was the relationships that developed between myself,
the parents and the whole group. As sessions developed there was more time to engage
individually with parents and time to follow up on previous discussions, catch up about children
and learn from each other.

A few highlights were hearing parents share ways in which they read and experienced life
with their children. Experiences ranged from library visits to visits overseas. One parent was
interested in the course to learn how to teach Fijian to his high school aged children.
Many brought ideas into discussions that involved their culture and values. This was very
precious and it was encouraging to see how much parents began to see that their culture  
and relationship with their child came first and reading was a way to develop that.

Changes in Mindset

Many parents referred to their upbringing the relationship they experienced with their parents
and the ‘Samoan’ way. It was very rewarding to hear their reflections and responses in
discussion regarding having more patience with their children , a desire to set aside time
to build on their relationships with their children and a commitment to begin approaching the
reading times at their child’s level.

Teaching Process

All four sessions for the first teaching course closely follow the course outline in Section 6. I
added some time in the second session to address some of the parents concerns regarding
digital devices and had a brief look at how digital devices were changing schooling and how
we could work with a positive mindset towards managing these in the home. Other adaptations
stemmed directly from parent discussions which I believed to be the most productive and
engaging parts of the course development.

Unfortunately, there was not enough weeks to fully complete the second course fully and so I
adapted the first session to include some of the key points throughout all four. Instead of
choosing a child to read with as this took extra time and had varied results since the children
could not be prepped for a session I used a video link of a student reading. Notes for the
session are linked here.

Personal Reflection

I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to engage with the parents at power up, many
of whom are well respected leaders of their communities and have far more cultural knowledge
and expertise than myself. Their acknowledgement, feedback and engagement in the sessions
was very rewarding.

The clear structures and prescriptive layout of the course was helpful for creating and
delivering strong and consistent information. I found the excerpts and resources to be helpful
and engaging for the parents. It was easier to work with the group when we had a physical
text to discuss.

Because of the nature of Power Up and the varied levels of children ranging from pre-schoolers
to highschool students the reading with the children session not as successful as quiet a few
parents had no children to read with. In retrospect this could have been better organised and
adapted to for this setting in future.

It was highly encouraging to  receive the feedback comments from parents and to know that
they appreciated the course content.

Feedback on Course Content

It would be helpful for some of the content to be adapted to address the pedagogy of our
current schools. With many students now doing reading and research online from as young
as year 1 many parents are seeking for advice on how this is followed up in the home.
Children are now requiring support in other ways too such as receiving parent feedback
on blogs, reading other children’s blogs and using their chromebooks to access all kinds
of texts that are more diverse than written form.

I would like to give a big shout out to the incredibly supportive Pasifika community and also

to Emma from the ministry who have invested and made the implementation of this
programme successful.

Thank you all for your time and please feel free to comment below.

Hotspot Writing - What does this look like in the Digital World

Kia ora Everyone!

It has been a while since I have posted last.

Most days at the start of our literacy session, Literacy group 2 enjoy a 'hotspot' writing time. This varies with activities including blogging, news discussion, free writing and writing goal prompts. These times are also silent writing sessions where we build out writing stamina.

At this time I have been writing with the children. This idea sparked from silent reading where Kate Mclachlan led by example and would read silently with the children as they were reading independently. This is a fabulous opportunity for students to see me leading as a writer and in seeing this realising that everyone should be seen as an author if they write. It also allows them to see the strategies they have been learning being used in real time.

This piece of writing has been done over the period of around a month during the one to two narrative hotspot writing sessions each week. For free writing session the children can use the prompt provided or write from their own ideas or experiences. This particular prompt is from the Pinterest writing prompts board.

Children are prompted or encouraged to copy and paste their current writing goal or a set writing goal into their 'date section' and keep this in mind when they write. It does not need to be copied each time they write.

No one ever saw the wizard. We just knew he was there because of the otherworldy items that floated downstream from his home.

8-5-18

We all assumed he lived somewhere in the Black forest that bordered the Pemberly village
as the Blue water stream originated from inside its depths, flowed through the village and
on to the lake three villages down.

Dean and I were fishing one day on the bank of Blue Water. We were close to the forest, tucked
under the overhanging roots of a large weeping willow.

“Holy Mackerel!” yelled Dean suddenly. I nearly fell into the stream. He was pointing at a strange
object floating downstream.

22-5-18

A roundish, glass object, with golden rings, little switches and silver buttons. An object made of
glass and metal shouldn’t float, but this one did. It bobbed and dove through the current, dancing
as if under the spell of its own magic.

“ Quick! Pick it up!” I yelled, as we both staggered up from where we were sitting, scrambling our
way down stream. I pulled of one shoe and then another, hopping on one foot and slipping on the
roots and mud. Wading into the water I scooped up the glass ball.

It felt light in my hands. And then it started to hum.

6 - 8 - 18

• Spoken words need to be in speech marks (“Help me!” cried Mark.)
• Start a new line  every time a new speaker speaks .
• Use the correct punctuation consistently

“What is it?” asked Dean bumbling against my shoulder. We were still standing in the stream.

“I don’t know. Something magic I guess. We should take it back to the wizard”

“I wonder what it does. Let me hold it.” Dean grabbed at the ball.

“Oi!” I pulled away. The glass ball began to vibrate in my hands.

“Don’t drop it!” yelled Dean. But, his warning was too late and the magical ball, jiggling out of my
hands, tumbled towards the stream and suddenly stopped.

It hovered above the water, floating just above the ground. Dean reached out for it and as he
did so it began to move, gently scooting over the surface of the water and up the bank, floating
about two feet of the ground.

Relationship Based Education

Relationship sits at the center of my ethics and purpose in life and it is no surprise that it is the driving force and greatest reward in my work. It is encouraging then to read that developing research has begun to discover and support what we know to be intrinsically effective.

A couple of highlights from the article:

"Music can make you a more creative and mindful person"
"Taking care of other might be good for your own resilience"
"The individual and social impact of Social and Emotional Learning programmes might last a long time"

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_top_10_insights_from_the_science_of_a_meaningful_life_in_2017 

LISTEN! ... in Order to Discern

"Every human being needs to listen consciously in order to live fully."

"We need to teach listening in our schools, as a skill..."

 I recently heard these statements from Julian treasure in his Ted talk below and I couldn't agree more. Essentially he is talking about the recent catch word 'mindfulness' however framing it in a way that shows how the use of or lack of can impact on our connectedness to each other and our daily interactions.