WFRC #5: Collecting evidence and data...

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

After this term's assessment week I created a blog post that reflected both current data and this group's historical learning pathways.

Following on from this I asked all my learners to complete our LS2 T1 evaluation questionnaire. Gathering student voice is something I feel is really important as it gives you a clear picture from your learners perspective alongside giving your students ownership of their learning. I have bullet pointed the responses from my target group that will help guide my hunch that some issues with my students’ math achievement are related to issues they have with reading instructions and tasks. (Two students were absent so I will update the information when I have their responses).

Link to Google Draw

Link to Google Draw

What is interesting here is only 1/7 students felt they had improved in maths. When I reflect back on our learning this term I know I have identified individual successes in all three curriculum areas in my feedback (both written and oral) to these students. What I now realise is that I only tapped into the power of peer led feedback in literacy. This is definitely something I need to embed into our maths lessons too. Could this is why most of this group do not see maths as an area they achieved success in?

Another piece of evidence that affirms my hunch was observed during a guided maths lesson. I asked my target students if we could we use the language and strategies we learn in reading and writing, in maths. 9/9 students saw reading as what we do during reading time, writing as what we do during writing time and maths as what we do during maths time. I needed them to understand that what we learn in one subject can be used to help us in another, so I used a maths problem solving exercise to help them see how this works.

As a collective group we were able to rise to the challenge of reading and interpreting the language of instruction and translating the word problem into a number problem. However, when I asked them to try another question independently this was not something they could do. Seeing this in a negative light would have been detrimental to the self efficacy that I had been trying to build, so I encouraged them to work collaboratively. Independently 8/9 students did not demonstrate resilience when faced with a challenge, but when able to have the learning conversations that come with working collaboratively, no one gave up. Some students were more active participants but no one disengaged. I now also realise that I need to help this group develop confidence when applying learning independently.