Reflection - 07/05 - Data

Student	Year Level	Knowledge Level	Strategy Level	Other info
Jessica	5	5	E5	Maths Attitude Survey
Amelia-Rose	5	4/5	E5	Maths Attitude Survey
Savannah	5	5	4	Maths Attitude Survey
Leanah	5	5	4	Maths Attitude Survey

Above is the group of students I have decided to focus on for data collection. I have chosen these particular students as they are all year 5, and are all at a similar knowledge/strategy stages. 

One of the things that stood out for me when conducting Gloss (strategy) testing is the reliance these students have on 'tried and true' basic strategies when solving addition and subtraction problems. A common strategy that they use is counting on or back. This is a process that they have learned to follow and they are very successful at executing it to achieve the correct result. The next step for these students is to be able to use part whole strategies to break numbers into smaller components. This links in with having the number sense to understand the nested nature of numbers and how they can be broken down into smaller parts.

By focusing heavily on Rich tasks this year, my aim is for these students is for them to be able to develop their number sense to enable them to apply complex and ultimately more efficient strategies using a part whole approach. A big part of this is exposing students to problems that require them to make connections with previous learning, use numbers in a flexible way, visualise what numbers represent and see that maths is evident in the world around us.

The secondary reason I have chosen these students is due to the way in which they perceive themselves as mathematicians. When chatting with a couple of these students I have heard them say "I can't do this" or "I am not smart at maths". I decided to survey these students to find out more about their attitudes towards mathematics (see links above). Some interesting things that I noticed:

- All students indicated that they like maths (3/5 rating)

- No students gave a rating of 5 for the question asking them if they are good at maths.

- 2 students gave a rating of 5 for the question relating to trying new things in maths.

- Most students (3 out of 5) said that they don't like maths that is challenging

At the end of the inquiry I will retest the students to see what changes have occurred. I am most interested in finding out if there has been any progress in the students ability to use their number sense by applying part whole strategies when solving problems. I will also conduct another survey with these students to find out if their attitudes to maths have changed during this time.