PRT observation (maths) – 08/08

PRT observation (maths) – 08/08

(Hard copy in PRT folder)

Teacher Voice analysis:

Questioning (level of questioning/quality rather than quantity)

19 questions asked during 15min session. Questions predominantly were either yes/no, or required a single word answer.

Moving forward, I need to focus on asking questions that require students to provide a more detailed answer. In particular, I want students to be able to clearly articulate their thinking, or consider a problem in a new light.

The following reading will help guide me in this area -

 Types of Questions

Within the context of open-ended mathematical tasks, it is useful to group questions into four main categories (Badham, 1994). These questions can be used be the teacher to guide the children through investigations while stimulating their mathematical thinking and gathering information about their knowledge and strategies.

1. Starter questions 
These take the form of open-ended questions which focus the children's thinking in a general direction and give them a starting point. Examples: 
How could you sort these.......? 
How many ways can you find to ....... ? 
What happens when we ......... ? 
What can be made from....? 
How many different ....... can be found? 

2. Questions to stimulate mathematical thinking 
These questions assist children to focus on particular strategies and help them to see patterns and relationships. This aids the formation of a strong conceptual network. The questions can serve as a prompt when children become 'stuck'. (Teachers are often tempted to turn these questions into instructions, which is far less likely to stimulate thinking and removes responsibility for the investigation from the child).
Examples: 
What is the same? 
What is different? 
Can you group these ....... in some way? 
Can you see a pattern? 
How can this pattern help you find an answer? 
What do think comes next? Why? 
Is there a way to record what you've found that might help us see more patterns? 
What would happen if....? 

3. Assessment questions 
Questions such as these ask children to explain what they are doing or how they arrived at a solution. They allow the teacher to see how the children are thinking, what they understand and what level they are operating at. Obviously they are best asked after the children have had time to make progress with the problem, to record some findings and perhaps achieved at least one solution. 
Examples: 
What have you discovered? 
How did you find that out? 
Why do you think that?
What made you decide to do it that way?

Reinforcement

There are several examples of where I reinforced what we were learning to do through specific feedback, e.g – “divide – like that style”, “Oh divide by, love that word!”

Student voice shows that perhaps success criteria was not made explicit enough as they were unable to explain the ‘how’ of their learning.

Honing in on the success criteria and referring back to this as a measure of success will be the focus for the next session.

Learning Language

Fractions, denominator, skip counting, multiplication, divide, Numerator,

Dialogue was waited towards teacher talk. This links back to the type of questions I am using. I need to get students talking about their learning more through questions that require higher order thinking

Behaviour Management

-      Students working independently reminded that talking is to be whispering only

-      One off task student reprimanded.

Teacher Professional Reflection

Teacher Practice

What did I do? What happened?

• Guided session focusing on finding fractions of a set.
•  Re-cap of previous learning
• Introduction of learning intention
• Explanation of why – using multiplication for efficiency.
• Student practice to gauge students preferential strategies.
• Modelled steps needed to complete LI
• Used materials to solidify learning

Student Learning

What happened?

• -      Students solidified their learning of using add/sub to find fractions of sets.
• -      Students were introduced to the use of mult/div to find fractions of sets and why this is the preferential option.
• -      Students self-assessed their progress – was this in relation to using addition or multiplication when finding fractions of sets? I’m not sure.
• -      Student follow work showed that they could answer questions with a denominator of 1, but ran into difficulty when this number was increased.
• -      Independent work also showed students had difficulty when the total was unknown and they were given the fraction.

Next Steps:

• -      Use a range of questions that required detailed answers that get students to reflect on their learning and think of problems in a new light
• -      Decrease teacher talk time
• -      Co-construct success criteria and use these as the measuring stick for success. Related feedback to these criteria.
• -      Focus on area of weakness in student knowledge as identified during previous guided session as well as independent follow-up work.
• -      Be prepared to fold back where necessary and use materials if students are having difficulty with imagery