Qu 8: How another lockdown period may impact the learners in your focus group?

How another lockdown period may impact the learners in your focus group? 

Will you need to make any changes to your Inquiry?

How might your intervention look different if you continue through this period?

• Do any of your intervention plans work via distance learning?
• Is there any information about implementation of your changed practices/intervention you could collect during this time?

As mentioned in an earlier post Alert Level 4 has pretty much seen my 2021 teacher inquiry come to a grinding halt. I do not have the authentic opportunities a face to face learning environment provides so I have needed to adapt what I am doing to encourage my students to keep the 'talk' going in Maths. 

Building on the 'familiar' by strengthening the language and vocabulary foundations already in place was how I thought we would move forward, but this has not happened in the ways I thought it would. With only my target students in mind, Google Meet attendance is an ever changing picture, making it quite challenging to get a whole group snapshot of where these students are at now. I have tried a variety of ways to try and organise a whole group Meet, but this hasn't panned out, with low level engagement being the barrier for two of these students.

Adapt and Try #5 asked my learners to write 3 maths questions linked to the topic of online gaming each using a different skill (eg: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, decimals, algebra…). Solve them incorrectly, then share the questions with a friend and challenge them to find, explain and fix the error.

The examples in the DLO show varied levels of understanding and I can see that these students are falling back on the known in their choice of number operation. Follow up conversations identified that these students chose to buddy up and collaborate for each part of this task, so my original idea did not work. Unfortunately, hindsight tells me that the real and rich conversations that took place were not captured. However in saying this, the interactions that evolved from my feedback in the comments tool showed me the depth of the thinking behind the co-construction of these responses.

Keeping the talk going in a distance learning environment is really challenging. This is an inquiry focus that is definitely best suited to a face to face environment. From the tasks I have set over the last few weeks I can see that 50% my target students are able to use maths language effectively to explain their thinking, 25% understand what it is they need to do but have not yet developed the vocabulary and language to allow them to do this, and 25% did not engage in this task. 

What has worked over the last few weeks, is that all my target group have engaged in the 'skill drill' type activities we have set. I have no idea why the buy-in for this type of learning is so high, but I'm taking this as a win. These students may not be physically talking about the strategies they are using, but they are using this time to strengthen their connections to the number knowledge foundations they need to have in place before connections to new learning can be built.

Being back in a face to face environment isn't going to automatically make my inquiry a success. I need to continue to reflect on my teaching and explore ways I can adapt and change my practice if I want to effect change and keep the 'talk' going in maths.

Adapt and Try Alert Level 4 version...

With the move to Alert Level 4 last week my teacher inquiry pretty much came to an immediate standstill. The hardest part being for me to get my head around is that I now know all the momentum we have built so far this year will take a giant step backwards, however having been in this position once before I realised quite quickly that adapt and try was the only option available to me. So with that in mind earlier this week I set my learners the familiar maths challenge to 'find the error, explain the error and fix the error', something I unpacked earlier in this post.

Unfortunately I don't have online engagement with all my focus group at this stage. However for those who are engaging this was the challenge set ( - refer to DLO below). I noticed some students preferred to work collaboratively and others independently. I have no problem with the option they choose. There are a number of ways forward for me including a small group Google Meet and making use of applications like Screencastify, but for now this allows me to once again widen my focus to my whole maths group. 

The responses on slides 2 and 3 (above) are varied in detail and use of content specific vocabulary but as with everything we do, it is about knowing your learners and understanding how they think and speak/write. What I take from these examples is that these students understand how to add decimals and understand the concept of BEDMAS, with the part that I'm get the most information from, being the explanations of the errors. In the example above I mentioned that any errors or misunderstandings can be easily ironed out in a Google Meet or through the comments tool using Mote or by written feedback. 

I need to find ways to keep the 'talk' going in Maths. However, at this stage my priority is to maintain and build on my student's maths vocabulary and strategy knowledge by continuing to provide authentic and purposeful opportunities for my students to use and apply this knowledge. Going forward we will use this time to build on the 'familiar' by strengthening the foundations already in place. 

Implement and Try #3...

During the holiday break I took some time to reflect on my teacher inquiry so far. Wanting to build on the foundations of what I have in place I started looking at ways other teachers get the talk going in maths lessons. One blog I found highlighted the reasons why we talk about maths. The bullet points below are the main takeaway I took from this post.

• Talking about maths allows us to share our thoughts.
• Talking about maths helps us clarify our own thoughts.
• Talking about maths helps us understand what we do and do not understand.
• Talking about maths prepares us for the future.

I know I've talked about this with my students but I now need to check that they understand these reasons. Talking about maths allows us to think about our own understanding of a concept or strategy. It allows us to use our own connections to agree or disagree with an idea. The power here comes from being able to justify our thinking by using maths language and strategies to show others why we think the way we do. Additionally being able to see how someone else's thinking is a more efficient way to find the answer helps to close gaps in knowledge. 

This week I introduced another idea I saw online. Instead of setting a challenge with an unknown answer I gave my students an incorrectly solved addition problem and challenged them to find, explain and fix the error. To help the talk flow I used the prompt 'How can you prove your answer is correct?' After solving the mystery the groups naturally moved around the room, eager to see if the others had found the error. 

I stepped back and listened  through the excited chatter to what was being said and heard that the LS2 Moves prompts we had been using, with absolutely no prompting from me, were being used to guide the conversations. The slide below shows the student voice collected. It was done very quickly but told me this style of facilitating conversation was a success.

I sourced this initial activity from Teachers Pay Teachers. My next steps will be to look at how I can incorporate and adapt some of the ideas in this resource to align with the content of our maths lessons. 

This is early days but I can't wait to see where this type of maths challenge takes us.

Implement and Try #2...

Today I worked with my focus students to practise using our LS2 oral language framework in context. This is the process we followed:

1. Write a question on the board that linked directly to the strategy of long multiplication that we have been learning this week. 
2. Students then answer the question using the known strategy on whiteboards to give them a visual reference for sharing time.
3. Use the LS2 oral language framework to explain the steps they followed to find their answer.
4. Reflect on which question/s we found most useful and unpack thinking.
5. Share what we found 'hard'.
6. Repeat the process

One student shared that they weren't able to share their strategy confidently because they didn't have the maths words to explain the steps they followed, so after some quick thinking on my part, I wrote a list of the maths words on the board. (Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of this.) The image below is an example of what we did. The focus here was on the strategy, not on identifying the maths in a written question. 

With the vocabulary list visible the students felt their conversations became more detailed. Afterwards we discussed the difference between the information shared without the vocabulary scaffold and with the vocabulary scaffold. 8/8 students felt they were able to make stronger connections to their partner's strategy. 

Student G83 shared that she 'felt more confident when it was my time to share as I had the words that I was missing before. This time I kind of knew what to say.'

The next change to my practice will be to co-construct a strategy specific vocabulary list during my guided teaching sessions. 

Implement and Try #1...

After realising neither myself nor my students had made a strong connection to the language used in theTalk Moves framework we changed the speaking frames to incorporate the language we use. I explained why we were making these changes, then embraced the changes my students suggested. 

Today we carried out our usual thinking group challenge, something we have been doing all year. This means that as we move into the latter part of term 2, the students are all familiar with each other and have developed the confidence needed to participate actively within these groups. We began the lesson by unpacking our adapted speaking framework. This meant that anything that needed further explanation was broken down so that connections could be made. I asked each group to choose a leader and that the leader could be anyone who wanted to have a turn to lead the learning conversation. 4/6 groups had a student from my focus group step up as the leader.

The photos in this slideshow capture a snapshot of the whole lesson to preserve the anonymity of the students in my focus group.

The difference today was once the initial independent problem solving challenge had been completed, the academically productive conversation flowed. I think this may be due to the fact I introduced the updated speaking frame as our own. Each group had a least one student who had participated in the process of changing Talk Moves into LS2 Moves so the ownership and connections were in place. The photos above show the level of engagement. 

At the end of the lesson I asked for group feedback linked specifically to the wording of our questions:

• 'Who has a different strategy? let students avoid self doubt if they had no strategy to share'. 
• 'My group feel that Who has a different strategy? and What other strategies could we use? are the same so maybe we could choose the one that helps us share our thinking more confidently.' 
• Can you tell me what you said? and Do you mean… are asking the same information. 

We discussed this feedback and decided that we need to clarify the purpose of the questions in context to help strengthen connections further.

Focus group feedback at the end of the lesson:

Q2: What is it that we want our students to learn?

As a school we are unified in the fact we want to strengthen our students' oral language skills, for many of us, it is so our students are able to confidently talk about their learning and understanding in maths. This not only deepens their understanding but also strengthens their connections. Strong connections allow for confidence to be increased and with an increased confidence comes the ability to ask questions. By using content specific language in context our students paint a much clearer picture for us of where they are at. These pictures also help us to see where misconceptions and disconnects are hiding. It is this detail that not only informs our practice but shows us when we need to make changes. 

Our data shows that across each class there is a huge disparity between the students who have made the connections they need to allow them to operate at a higher and more challenging level, and those for who the gap widens each year. It must feel incredibly disempowering to keep trying and not reap the rewards of success that mastery of a concept brings. Talk Moves is something every student can do and is something where every student regardless of achievement level will begin to feel success. 

Transferring this learning talk to blog commenting is going to afford our learners a further opportunity to revisit their learning in context. The Covid 19 lockdowns of 2020, and more recently, of 2021 meant all our learning abruptly shifted to the online platform. There was a lot less opportunity to have that 1:1 teacher time that our lower ability learners need in order to help them feel supported when taking risks in new learning. Talk Moves will not only provide a well rehearsed pattern of conversation within a google meet, but in addition will allow our students to continue learning as they maintain the all important connections with their peers via their blogs.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we realised that if we were expecting the comments to be specific, the learning behind the blog post content needed to be equally as specific. By linking the language we want our learners to use to the Talk Moves process, we are providing an authentic opportunity for our learners to practise using the language we are hoping to see within both a blog post and a blog comment. By having the opportunity to practise we are removing the unknown and affording our learners the rich opportunity to learn both from and with each other in context. 

As teachers not all the adaptations we make work but by carrying out continued inquiry we are able to continually reflect, adapt and try. The ideas we try that are not successful are often referred to as mistakes. However it is by sharing these ‘mistakes’ along with our successes that others have the opportunity to learn the most from us. Something that may or may not have worked for one teacher, might just be the key that unlocks the door another teacher is trying to open.

Q1: Brainstorming Student Inquiry Foci...

At Panmure Bridge School our shared aim for 2021 is to carry out visible and rich teacher inquiries to help us meet one of our school’s strategic goals of 1 ½ times accelerated shift in Maths. 

Currently our inquiries fit under the wider umbrella of Achievement Challenge 6, to lift the achievement in maths for all students years 1-13, in our case years 1-8. Throughout 2020 our school wide professional development focus was Maths. This year we began the year with a teacher only day on maths that allowed us to top up our own knowledge ketes and strengthen our own connections to this curriculum area. Consolidation is the key to success here as it allows us to take the learning from 2020 and give it a place of value in 2021.

One area we can all implement as we embark on our 2021 learning journey with our students, regardless of level, is the strategy of Talk Moves. Talk Moves is a strategy that promotes classroom conversations centred on maths that helps to improve students' understanding of mathematical concepts. Talk Moves is a framework to prompt the discussion. Frameworks was the one thing most of us identified as being the most powerful tool towards helping increase student achievement. These frameworks or prompts were not generic, they were class specific, created by the teacher to help meet the learning needs of the students in front of them. The idea of frameworks or prompts was the most common tool teachers at PBS wanted to carry forward in 2021. I’m excited to see how each teacher adapts the Talk Moves framework for their class. As a teacher of Year 7 and 8 students I know that I can definitely learn from the work done by the teachers in the class levels below mine, as they can learn from me. Often a word that makes no sense to one person can be the word that unlocks the learning for another.

Last year we all encouraged our learners to use and apply their learning, and the language and vocabulary linked to that learning, by leaving purposeful comments on each other's blogs to promote authentic dialogic interactions. The differentiation came in the form of individual peer to peer comments in the senior school, and class to class comments in the junior school. Doing this allowed us all to peek into the learning going on in each room. 

At the end of the 2020 school year I had a check in chat with each teacher. Once again we were all on the same page with our reflections identifying that changes in practice not only gave us opportunities to develop a strong cybersmart program, but also encouraged us to think critically about the learning and language behind each lesson. In the senior school we realised that if we were expecting the comments to be specific, the learning behind the blog post content needed to be equally as specific. Rather than moving on and leaving this rich learning behind, as a school we have decided to focus our teacher inquiries around how the language and learning need to actively participate in Talk Moves can be harnessed and replicated in blog comments. 

Data from the SLJ shows that the value we placed on blog commenting helped our students to connect to the learning shared online by their Manaiakalani, and their wider outreach school peers in a meaningful and purposeful way. Dialogic conversations were not the exception, they were the norm. With this evidence and the evidence we have from our 2020 learning journey, we have chosen to capitalise on this momentum and continue to strengthen what we began last year. The power for us as a school is how each teacher puts their own spin on it.

One size definitely does not fit all in this case. What I am excited about as the in-school COL teacher for Panmure Bridge School is finding out how each teacher approaches this challenge. We all agree that we want to use Talk Moves in Maths to help us meet our school’s strategic goal of 1 ½ times accelerated shift in that curriculum area. The changes we identify that we now need to make to our practice is where the learning will come from.  It takes a village and each member of our PBS village who willingly shares their practice, ideas and inquiry journeys allow us to strengthen our own teaching and learning skills. 

For us, it is the opportunity to consolidate our learning from 2020 that we hope will be the key to our success.