Math Practice Intensive Day #3

 My Math Learning Journey Planning a Math Programme

27 Māehe 2025

We started the day in break out rooms to share about our mahi kāika and how we have been going.  An idea that I hadn't thought of, was the kids creating the learning outcomes. Mary had some great ideas. Another of hers is to allow students to work on their workbooks in Math No Problem. She also uses Canva to model and explain concepts. I might need to look in to this.

We are able to get a free upgrade on Canva - check how I can upgrade. Also look at Demoz for an online whiteboard. A favourite of Tiff's is Polypad. Mathagon is the website and Polypad is within that. There is something similar to Prototec on Mathagon.It's always going to be free. 

Dorothy Burt - Planning a Maths Programme.

The learn part of Learn Create Share is strong when in the planning part of math and being deliberate about effective practice. 

Directives from the Ministry, research, local curriculum feed into effective practice. Make learning and teaching visible. Hāpara is visibility of student learning for the teacher. Google Sites are about the learners having visibility of the learning programme. Too much time is wasted, so within our design, ensure learning is accessible for learners. 

Engagement - Personalised Learning - 

Four step method to access learning:

There should be no need for QR codes and passwords on paper for students to get to their learning. We have access to facilitators who can help with organising our site etc.

Three click rules. How long does it take for your learners to get to their learning? Think about the navigation and capture the tricky parts of learning content.

Use this when designing and updating the Google Site. 

Go and have a look at Ngā Whetu o Manaiakalani for ideas and inspiration.

Make sure learners are taking screenshots of their online mahi. They could have a slide similar to the one I use for Prototec. 

Every student must have access to content at their year level. Remember to incoude and use enablers and extenders. This will be helpful for some kāiako in my hub for their learners who are needing extension. 

Use share.manaiakalani.org for ideas and great examples.

Planning and Timetabling

Although this is for junior levels, it is still relevant and a helpful guide for all teachers. 

When planning a comprehnsive math programme, we need to integrate across strands. Number is ongoing and is integrated. Develop plans and lessons using teaching sequences. Consider how we can revisit and consolidate learning. When doing our long term plan, find ways to integrate math across different curriculum areas. What connections can we see and always ask, what math can we bring in? 

This can help to map and ensure coverage.

Oh my gosh, this for Canva. It's what I wanted to use in class recently.

On reflection after using this tool, I wonder how my whole class would go with this. Maybe teaching in small groups first.

It has been acknowledged that these expectations are quite difficult to meet. Share planning with teacher aides to help utilise Teach the kids who need us the most and use teacher aides to consolidate etc.

Grouping Your Learners

The expectation is to teach to the year level. Flexible grouping is the key word for groupings.

I have often struggled with mixed ability grouping, but bhave been delving into this since using Math No problem. Who would have thought that being told to teach to the year level would prompt me into this? At first I was thinking, oh my goodness, but now it is working pretty well and has given ākonga some voice and awareness in their learning.

Next Steps: I need to get my planning onto my learning site through a task board. I've been struggling with how I will do this because of not yet having specific groups. I'll start with one for the majority and then an enablers slide.

Math Talks: Estimation

Ground rules are behaviours and expectations. Talk Moves are specific strategies to deepen student  thinking and engagement. 

A symbol for estimation - I didn't know this was a thing. 

Next step: Introduce an estimation task for next week. 

Viewing these images, ākonga can have discussions and explain their thinking about their estimations. This would be a great for practicing Ground Rules for Talk. I think my students would love these, especially if I use images of things they are excited about such as dinosaurs, Minecraft etc. 

This activity was fun and I think it's a great way to introduce estimation. I'll add this to my Math learning for next week. Estimate before calculating. The supermarket is a perfect real life context. 

Some learners have confusing around rounding and estimation. Rounding is a skill within estimation.

We need to ensure that ākonga understand when estimation is appropriate vs when calculation is needed. 

Rich Math Tasks

I've been looking forward to this as I had a conversation about rich tasks and ended up getting confused. 

Rich tasks are math problems that can be solved in different ways. They have a creative aspect to them. 

Thinking can be extended through collaboration and sharing. A variety of problem types is beneficial and ensure that problems are balanced. Students will need scaffolding and support, so be mindful of cognitive load. 

Gather prior knowledge about the content and ask questions to clarify and consolidate prior knowledge. Read the question and turn and talk about the task. How can we rephrase the question? Bring in estimation. 

It takes time to understand and use these practices. 

Pre-planning could be done at hub/syndicate level. 

Use the learning intentions and success criteria at the end of the session to reflect on the task and level of understanding. 

From your anticipating and monitoring of their discussions, choose an idea that is useful to explain further (addressing misconceptions), based on the most important strategies or number knowledge learners need to know
If you’re not sure which ideas are the most important, choose from the teaching sequences!

We created a bank of rich tasks. Insert

Monitoring, Selecting, Sequencing, Connecting

Have equipment ready and available prior to starting the lesson. (Have a look at the Think Through Template).

Recap the Ground Rules For Talk to make sure I am not just dealing with behaviour etc. 

We are aware of who our not so confident kids are, so giving roles can allow them to engage and contribute their ideas. We are wanting to create opportunities to succeed. Also, having the mindset that we are smarter together. Rich tasks are easier to implement when we have done the ground work before the lesson. 

Something new to me...

This is a digital modelling book. At the moment, I don't feel confident in my planning to explore this yet. 

Selecting

• Teacher selects particular learners to share their thinking with the rest of the class.

• The selection is guided by the maths goal of the lesson

Sequencing

• Make purposeful choices about the order in which students’ thinking is shared back

• Sequencing anticipated responses is key to the lesson

• There is not one right way to sequence - it depends on the goals for the lesson

Connecting

• Teacher helps students draw connections between their solutions as well as the key mathematical ideas in the lesson
  
  

• Student presentations build on each other

When looking for rich tasks, we are wanting tasks that generate conversation and discussion.

Allow time for learners to do the rich tasks. 

Independent Learning

We need to keep track of student progress. The teacher workbook has progressions, although they don't align to the curriculum yet.

Make sure we aren't just doing 'busy work'. 

If we give students an online task and don't actually follow-up and give kids time to share, we are wasting their time and they are not effective.

Using a mahi tracker sheet helps to gather evidence of student learning. I used one for Literacy last year which was great, but I didn't sustain it. The positive thing about that was that students asked where it was. 

I need to remember to teach to the curriculum and not just following the books of Math No Problem. I do think I viewed the books in that way for a while there. 

I feel a lot clearer about what rich tasks are, which is great because it was something that I wanted to delve into. 

I feel like I have been a bit slack with my mahi kāika, among other things, so my goal is to create the time and space to get the mahi done before our next session.