Maths planning for the bigger picture-Sue Pine

Today we had Maths professional development with Sue Pine our Maths facilitator.
Here are some of the things that we discussed regarding planning for mathematics in the classroom as a team.

Goals- Identify the purpose of a task and what a lesson will look like.
Establish group norms for working collaboratively.
Motivate and engage students with group worthy tasks.
Develop a sequence of purposeful lessons.

Question that we discussed as a whole group:
What are the kind of things you don't like children to say or do when you are working with a group with a maths problem?

• Calling out. 
• Working our answer really fast but not explaining how they solved their answers. 
• Not thinking about the question.

What would you like rest of class to do when you are working with a group. 

• Listening.
• Sharing ideas. 
• Positive reinforcement. 
• Working collaboratively on a maths problem as a group task.
• Managing themselves well and knowing exactly what they should be doing. 

Giving children the chance to work out the problem on their own. Teacher then comes and checks and then moves away so that she does not solve it for the children. 

Where do the problems that I devise sit on the national standards? What is it that my students should be  doing at their level. How can we accelerate their learning at the level that they are at?

Task Purpose-Independent VS group worthy

1. What kinds of tasks would you use to find out what the students know
2. What kinds of tasks would you use to develop students mathematical thinking?
3. What kind of task would you use to check in on student progress and understanding?
4. Which kind of task would you use to gather national standards evidence?

Group setting: get them to use one paper and have shared thinking/sharing of ideas. 

What does a good mathematician do? 

1. Shares their thinking.
2. Represents their thinking in many different ways.
3. Able to explain their thinking and how they go their answer confidently. 

What kinds of problems can we use for our students and is it at the right level?

Useful Resource: Fraction frames, figure it out booklets, numeracy planning sheets, NZ MATHS. 

What might your sequence of lessons look like?

Develop a sequence of lessons to support students learning at your level. Keep in mind the purpose of each lesson.

Posing of questions to find out what the children already know-Accessing prior knowledge.

I found the Professional development very useful and how I pose Mathematical questions based on the national standards.

At year 5 and 6 level children should be at stage 6 by the end of the year. So being able to have the national standards up in the classroom and being able to refer to our year 5-6 Target goals is really helpful towards accelerating children in their learning.