Math No Problem

 Math No Problem Professional Learning

Catalyst for Change

Problem solving is at the heart of Mathematics and should be the focus in schools.

Basic skills in Mathematics should be defined to encompass computational thinking.

MNP approach is a complete system. 

Everyone starts on A Book. One between two ākonga. 

Assessment - This is built in and sits inside student work book and end of chapter review. Mid and end of year assessments give a good view of data. 

Section A: application of knowledge

Section B: application of knowledge using familiar 

Section C: Application of knowledge...

Bridging Guidance section has lessons that have been designed to include the new curriculum. 

Mastery approach is taught to year levels and to the whole class. The same concepts are revisited a number of times. Mastery is designed to create equitable outcomes for students. Chapters are always the same. 

Need to introduce children to the methods and strategies used throughout the books. Complex strategies are introduces early on.

My Questions: Do I teach the Year 6 lessons? 

Chapter structure - The first part is practicing and developing procedural fluency. The rest is applying in different scenarios. 

White Space - More lessons in a school year than there are in the books. For Year 6, 141 lessons and 55 white space days. Can use for remediation, enjoying teachable moments and add something of your own. 

You need to do the prep prior to each lesson. 

Lesson One is in everyones' zone of understanding and is often a recap of the level before. The objective is supported by the workbook activities. 

Fundamentals:

Anxiety can be a barrier to achievement in Math. 

The number cards are a key part of the lesson we took part in. It is called CPA -Concrete Pictorial Abstract. (Check this).

Don't put struggling learners with other strugglers.

Consider personality as well as skill set.

Don't use TA with strugglers in Explore tasks.

Advanced with advanced isn't always the most beneficial.

Logistics Tips

Consider a set buddy and set space.

Transition from floor to carpet can be helpful for different parts of the lesson.

Resources are used one between two. 

Be mindful about seating, fours is optimal for group discussions. Explore tasks done at desks is a good idea. Movement between tasks is good. 

PART TWO

When doing a lesson, start with Explore. What is the critical concept that is being learned? The explore part is one whiteboard between two. This space is an exploratory part. One marker between two. 

Structure - You may need materials because MNP assumes kids know certain things. If they don't, use materials and gap fill. 

Bring the text books to the mat too, so ākonga can follow along. Give students time to have an explore of the book before getting stuck into it. 

Practice - Is not the same as drill. Extends understanding of a concept. 

Guided Practice - Is in the textbook. This is when you might run workshops.

Worksheets are done at the end of the lesson for 10-15 minutes. Culture - You just do as much as you can. Differentiated. 

Section 1 - Basics

Section 2 - Basics and solve problems

Section 3 - Basics and can apply in an unfamiliar context.

Support target children with the workbooks down on the mat.

If you have to support content in section #1, don't continue into sections 2 and 3 as that doesn't show that ākonga have mastered it. 

Journal - develop mathematical thinking skills, clarify, communicate etc. 

Differentiation - Need to ensure the foundations skills are strong. Differentiation tab and the end of each chapter is where you find ideas and questions. 

Implementing classroom routine. 

Invent a method, write a note for a friend, evaluate today's methods (Which method do you prefer and why?) CHALLENGE YOURSELF. This is used for fast finishers. Relate to when we might use the skill we are learning. 

For when ākonga are struggling with part-whole strategies.

Guided workbook groups -

Fill the gaps by using previous years concepts. Plan this for the whole class. If there is an issue with basic facts etc, provide and resource. Literacy will be a barrier if we let it be a problem.

MNP is designed as an inclusive pedagogy. 

The Bar Model

Bar modelling is not drawing a picture of the story. It is representing the mathematical relationship. Introduced at Year 4, so Year 6, go back. 

Ways we could structure classes. It could be that we go to single cell for Math. 

PATs align with MNP. Get rid of GloSS and Jam. 

Make sure you have a look at the workbooks. The above 

A resource list comes. It's a good idea to do an inventory. Resources are typical things that we have in school. Buy some place value discs...include decimal discs.

Personal Reflection - I think it is exciting to have one approach that is easy to access, within the school. There is quite a bit of learning to do here, but I am looking forward to trying this new approach and not doing things how I have always done them. 

Let's Talk Math

 Uru Mānuka Teacher Only Day 2024

A day of exploration into the new Math curriculum. 

Ian from Learning Architects

2024 Curriculum has phases, progression outcomes and

1. Year 1-3

2. Year 4-6

3. Year 7-8

4. Year 9-10

5. Year 11-13

Understand - Good foundation of number knowledge, prior knowledge, 

Patterns and variation - 

Logic and reasoning -

Visualisation and application - 

Know - important concepts and procedures. 

Do - foundational processes.

Investigating situations

Presenting situations

Connecting situations

Generalising findings

Explaining & justifying findings.

Progress Outcomes combines understand, Know and Do

What is the same and what is different? Looking at the old and the new. 

Liana's Share

Anō 

Check out CERME Centre for Research in Mathematics Education. For access to dMIC resources.

RPI #9 - Sharing

 Reading Practice Intensive

Visible Learning - Sharing in Reading

Next step: Next week, after camp, I would love for ākonga to explore some blogs from across the motu. 

Tips for blog posts:

Have these available to ākonga can be constantly reminded about the quality of their blog posts.

Make sure the blog work is planned for and visible through the learning site and a regular and integral part of what ākonga do. Use a quality check with a buddy and 

Use 'Ready to share' rather than 'finished'. A Hand It In space will support accountability.

FIOP - Finish it off Properly

Feedback and Reflection

In relation to our success criteria and what learners have to do to have the expected outcomes. (Don't add it to everything).

What will help me build on for where I need to go?

For me, I think I need to be more deliberate in using descriptive and generative feedback. I will aim you use Mote in the coming week. Has a limit of 20. Shift, command, 5 is a good way to record and audio on your Mac.

Mote - How cool for giving feedback. I used it for some feedback on our Te Marama poems. I had the Types of Descriptive Feedback open which helped me trying to have more than one type.

Global Feedback - Use that for a type of feedback that will be for all or many of the students. 

For Feedback Routines - What is Going Well?

Collaboration

My reflection on wider opportunities to collaborate. What might I add or tweak.

My first thing would be to review the expectations clear. I then want to be more deliberate in my planning for collaboration opportunities. Maybe some symbols would be good to use.

Some of our learners have been doing some collaborative writing. They write from a different character's perspective. I'd like to do this more.

I like this as it is something I have been working to improve. 

This shows how much learning and practice can happen through blog commenting and responding. 

Whānau Engagement

It possibly won't always be how we want it, but sharing can definitely help keep whānau in the loop with what we are doing.

How can I as a teacher, support whānau involvement?

I just had an idea of something I needs to do. Using the Reading Challenge activities, scaffold these one at a time, so ākonga are confident with them and can make informed choices later and at home.

Add into our task boards, an element for sharing of reading. This could be done a few times a term. Utilise or new local library space and invite whānau to come with us as we walk there.

Connect Home and School

Language Weeks - Get whānau to come in and read a story to classes.

Does my site have a go-to portal for ākonga to access follow-up mahi? No...not yet, but this is definitely something I would like to do. 

How will I develop and make a plan for my kete of skill builders? 

The padlet we used to look how we would plan for sustainability was really helpful for going forward.

Yay! What an amazing programme this has been. So much learning and so many great tools that can be used to enhance learning for our precious ākonga. I am looking forward to growing my reading practice even more next year.

RPI #8 Creating

 Reading Practice Intensive

This session excites me because I feel like my 'create' space could do with a ramp up and I know that there are so many things that I don't know about.

My reflection about the mahi kāika: I have been terrible at updating the mahi tracker and my teacher workbook.

Thinking - Started introducing the levels of thinking. Started of being a shambles but once I unpacked ‘Literal’, they got that. We started Interpretative and kids could relate to inference work. Evaluative is our next level of thinking to work on.

Used Tokelau Language Week for a context and to create a text set. That worked quite well.

Figurative Language - I used my writing lessons to touch on figurative language.

Position of Resistance - Used the text Dive to discuss and share ideas about the provocation about separation and divorce. 

Vocabulary - I’m finding this to be an area of need so have been getting kids to do some unpacking of vocabulary. 

Learner reflections about our discussion as critical analysts was done verbally and we are nearly at the written stage.

I found it quite tricky to cover everything as things took much longer than I anticipated. 

I liked how another participant gets her kids to record themselves reading regularly and they have a Google Slide with the text and their recording with comprehension questions. 

Dorothy Burt - Create as a response to Reading (& Writing) Engaging and Empowering Learning

Create opportunities won't happen if we don't intentional design and include these. 

Many employers are looking for creativity. Historically, teachers were expected to teach creativity. The idea is for our young people to be creators rather than consumers. (Look at what happened with Justin Bieber). 

Reorganise and apply knowledge. This was a key phrase for me as I have noticed some issues with my ākonga who tend to copy and paste. 

SiSoMo - Sight, sound and motion. These three together are the key to capturing an audience. 

(Have a look at the Creative Fluency slide regarding AI).

A lot of AI tools are R18, although there are a few that we can use with kids. Teachers could use tools like Crayon to show what AI can do. This can prompt discussion about how well AI has done with the text. These can still be teaching and learning conversations, while experiencing, thinking and engaging with AI. 

wondercraft.ai can help to create podcasts. 

Design time to include create!!

Create classrooms that INSPIRE creativity!!

This is a good time of year to take time to improve digital fluency and creativity. Invest that time to strengthen skills. It would be good for ākonga to be able do create tasks without it taking loads of time. 

Creative Juices Flowing

Task: Te Marama by Kelly Joseph

Record myself reading the first verse. Find a sound icon and inset it into the shared slide. Copy the text and insert into my slide. Illustrate it. 

Te Marama by Kelly Joseph

I loved this task. This is perfect for a need I have noticed which is about visual language and mood. 

I'm going to do these types of tasks with my class.

Adobe Podcast

Free plan allows for an hour a day. Check it out here: https://podcast.adobe.com/studio

Why Creativity is So Important

Professor Jonathan Neeland, Creative Fellow, Warwick University

I am looking forward to creating more opportunities to include modify and redefine creative tasks. 

Create to Show Learning

Short creative responses to text. 

I like the idea of doing an impromptu interview and taking on the roles of characters. 

Tight designs have some kind of constraint where looser are open-ended and creative responsibility is on the learner. 

Stencils: Go to google stencils and search for what you want. You can create a Google Drawing as a template and use a stencil of something significant from the text, a T-Shirt, umbrella and playing cards. The create a creature/character card game design. This would be really good for character work, particularly as we look at our Māori gods later in the term. These tasks would fit into a response to text activity. 

To Do: Add a create response to a response to text. We will share these examples with ākonga responses. 

I am thinking about doing texts around Māori healing and using the texts Rongoā and Tohunga.

Routine Opportunities: CHOICE

Tools / Task / Product

When choosing tools, make sure they aren't overused and allow proficiency and creativity. 

I have started using Book creator, but the first session we had wasn't great because what was created was not good quality. I haven't used Pixton or Storyboard That. Storyboard That has some good cultural representation. 

Quizzes:

So Canva does quizzes too...who knew? I used Socrative years ago and haven't seen it for a long time. 

On my site, have links to create tools. For my learners in the next few weeks, I am going to try out Sumo Paint and sharing via our blogs. I quite like the idea of using quotes/whakatauki and having an image of the person who said it.

A One-Shot Film

Book Chain - This can be used to recommend texts to other learners. This is great because my ākonga have already started doing recommendations, but verbally. This can be our next step.

Book Trailer

Going forward, I think I will set up space in our green room for filming...although the lighting is terrible. Think about the device for recording and a tripod. 

Empower learners to practice filming and setting up to make it part of their routine. I have never really taught ākonga to use iMovie, so I think this might be a good time for that. 

I like the idea of promoting books via a one minute recording. 

I started making a video about The Kuia and The Spider, but didn't have the Google Meet on mute and there was talking, so next time, I'll mute. 

Here is my book recommendation:

Routine Opportunities: Collaboration

Outside the Create - Working together to contribute to the design or c0-authoring and co-constructing.

Inside the Create - Learner faces, voices, movement.

Display and digitise in order to be able to share. 

Planned Units

For longer novel studies or units, using a site is a good idea. 

I like the part where ākonga record themselves reading within a doc and then work with the text. 

Reflection of Today:

I am really glad to have been introduced to some new creative tools that I haven't used before. I'm quite excited about using these. 

One thing that has really stuck in my mind was from Dorothy's session where she talked about this time of year being a good time to focus on create tasks and tools. 

I often get caught up with things I feel like we should do in our lessons. This was good for me to hear because it also allows me to refine some of the other parts of my programme. 

I also really liked the task we did with the poem and can imagine my ākonga loving it to. This would be great to share with whānau.

RPI Day 7: Thinking

 THINKING

I feel like I've dropped a few balls since the last session as I haven't done any mahi since then. I've got some catching up to do. 

One thing I am also mindful of is making sure I maintain what I have implemented and also think on how I can share this with other staff, particularly with my new team next year.

Dorothy Burt's Kōrero:

These were seen as the four skills needed across all learning areas. Critical Thinking is at the top for a reason. 

We all need critical thinking skills. We can't passively accept what is being presented to us. 

Next week is Cybersmart week, which is a good time to use the Cybersmart programme. Smart Learners and Smart Media are where we can go to reframe and use to teach in our own settings. 

AI - Artificial Intelligence - There are definite positves and definite negatives to what AI can do and what is shared. Manaiakalani are including AI lessons, particulalrly because many kaiako haven't had time to delve into it. 

Matt Goodwin's mailing list. Add me to the Cybersmart Challenge list.

Have a look at these lessons and start including these lessons to develop critical thinking. 

The best way to think critically about something, is to do it. By doing it ourselves, we start to understand how images can be modified. Harness the digital and the resources that have been gifted. Allow opportunities for ākonga to do and understand.

Chalk ‘n Talk | Georgie

Introducing higher order thinking to access the deeper meanings in texts. Designing opportunities for building learners’ awareness of thinking, ‘beyond the literal level’.

Get kids to think about using above the line skills rather than being concrete and literal in thinking. There are three levels of thinking for being a good readers.

We want all ākonga are learning these vital skills and we are reducing inequity. 

How we can use this text:

Showing our thinking by using think alouds. 

We can see the connections between the texts using a text set. I think I have been over thinking the text set thing. 

We went through an activity to identify the type of question. It was quite good to 

Deep Dive | Amie

Analysing text as a basis for unlocking higher order levels of thinking: “zooming in” and “zooming out”. 

The text must have a voice so evidence can be sought. Used to classify and organise learning objectives. Learning can be constructed in easy to difficult steps. 

Analysis involves close reading of a text. Helps to reveal connections and relationships between ideas. 

An analogy: Hawks vs Magpies

I struggled to open this PDF, so I need to do some work on this and add relevant extensions etc. 

Zoom in - word level and zoom out - wider text.

By the end of your planning you should have at least:

1) Written down the big idea or statement that you want learners to understand. How will you make this visible for them?

2) A written instruction that tells learners what they need to look for (highlight) in the text and a way of recording that evidence for connecting to the main idea.

Explore: Georgie

Extending interpretive thinking to Figurative Language. Making connections between concrete and abstract meanings.

The slides for this section were really cool for developing figurative language. (I need to have another look at these).

Add this component to my Long Term Plan. When and how will I teach and explore figurative language? 

Deep Dive: Amie

Critical analysis (Part 1): Perspectives - Key approaches to critically reading & challenging text(s).

Provocation: To be brave, you have to be scared.

Have clear protocols and rationales for collaborative reasoning. Disagreement can be risky. Remember to include Ground Rules for Talk and the roles for discussion cards. 

For the rating tool, I can use the system I use throughout our programme. 

We tried writing some reflections using Figjam...I didn't have much success. I lost all of the ideas and found it a bit painful, so I'll need to explore and try using it with my ākonga.

The questions help provoke thinking about gender imbalance and the kinds of messages the audience will get.

I think my current learners would be right into having discussions about gender imbalance as they have already talked about such things in the playground, with boys being 'sexist'. 

Give ākonga opportunities to read different perspectives.

For the text Dive, I think one of the main themes is about relationship break ups and how the main character goes through different emotions and thoughts due to her parents not being together and making choices about what to say or share with each parent. 

Skill Builder | Georgie

Teaching synthesis

Synthesis Matrix

Comparisons across texts can be done using a Venn diagram. The matrix also has a Main Idea and supporting ideas task and a synthesis map. 

Have a look at the reading on the slide and the Resource Room Screencast Synthesis. 

Explore | Amie 

Building learners independence through Response to Text: 

Opportunities to practice higher order thinking using  a ‘levels of thinking’ approach.

We started working on a response to text slide, so I used the text The Dive. Choosing this text was unintentional as I was looking for something based on Fijian Language Week and this one popped up. I have a few learners who have some challenging situations to deal with, so I think this would be quite helpful for them. This topic is also one that could prompt a lot of discussion and each child will be able to talk about their experience and situation.

My next steps:

• Put time into organising my mahi from the last session and update the mahi tracker.
• Have a look at other peoples' mahi for ideas.
• Update my teacher workbook and long term plan for the term.
• Update my group task boards to include vocabulary and literal, interpretive and evaluative thinking questions.