Mia's Teaching Journey

In the past we would learn the skill, whereas now we start with the mathematical understandings. Planning takes time. Consider what you want for your students to learn in terms of big ideas - rather than strategies you're going to teach. NZ Maths Home Page - Curriculum Elaborations, under this 'Key Ideas of Mathematics'. These are no finite, they are infinite. Big idea is CENTRAL to the learning of mathematics, big ideas make connections. Big ideas develop a deep understanding of mathematics.  Step 1: You need to know the curriculum. Do you research google: 'Key mathematical ideas', you must understand these ideas. Books such as Van de Walle are great.  Step 2: Think about your students Think about what they bring to the classroom culturally and mathematically.  Put current knowledge and interests at the centre of your instructional decision making How can you best present mathematical concepts can match your students prior knowledge base? Step 3: Deci...

To recap, my Inquiry question for this year is: Would the everyday, explicit and rich teaching of mathematical language, coupled with step by step techniques of unpacking word problems, help my learners to better understand mathematical concepts, and better answer questions and explain how they got their answer?  Last term  I did a lot of work around how we 'unpack' a word problem (essentially using the DIMC approach) and doing lots of learning around mathematical vocabulary.  A recap of how I have been implementing this in my maths class with my learners:  When looking at a word problem: What is the story about/ What do we know from the story? We have spoken about the word ‘context’ and what this means. With every question I have introduced to the children they have had to explain the context of it.  What are we trying to find out? Once the group is able to agree upon a way they may go about solving the problem they are given paper to being their work...

Kia Ora. I am delighted to be a within schools CoL teacher at Point England Primary School for 2018. I will be using the Manaiakalani cluster inquiry framework to focus my inquiry and make my learning and teaching visible in 2018. This framework has been co-constructed specifically for Manaiakalani schools drawing on the New Zealand teaching as inquiry framework and using the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy as a guide for inquiry. Throughout the year I will label my blog post to make sure it is easily accessed by others. I will label them using the Learn, Create, Share structure. This year I have chosen to focus my inquiry around the Manaiakalani Achievement Challenge 6: Lift Achievement in Maths for all students year 1- 13. Our overarching  school focus is: Acquisition of Language. I will be inquiring into: Would integrating the teaching of strand maths with number, help kids to better acquire key mathematical language, raising their achievem...