Under the Spotlight (Maths)

Recently, senior management conducted an observation in my classroom as part of my appraisal process.

I always find these types of experiences enlightening as it is often difficult to be objective about your teaching and it is easy to miss or over look aspects of your practise.

After sitting down and discussing the observations with management, a document was shared with me outlining what they noticed.

There were some pleasing aspects, but it is the next steps that I will focus on here:

1. Use a range of resources to teach maths

I was challenged to think about how I could use materials to help students pick up maths concepts in a more engaging way.

One way I could do this is instead of having students skip count on whiteboards, they could use a hundreds chart. This will give a visual reference and will also help students to identify patterns. 

2. Provide clear learning intentions (co-construct)

This is something I could do with students at the end of the lesson by posing the question - what are the steps that we need to remember to take to complete problems like this. The steps could then be recorded and displayed for the students to refer back to.

3. Scan and move

Taking the opportunity to roam the room while students are working on problems on the mat. This will help me to assist students that are having difficulty and also increase accountability. 

4. Teacher talk vs Student talk

I have started to give students the more of an opportunity to share their ideas and become the teacher. 

5. Flow of independent learning and differentiation

Mixed ability groups is something that I will look to implement in the future (Term 3)

6. Classroom displays

I have made some changes to my wall displays and will ensure in the future that learning is accompanied by learning intentions or an explanation.