So in the previous post I announced that I was going to try something new once again with my class. As you will appreciate, Term 4 gets hectic in a primary school - especially when you have the oldest children in your class and they are moving on to other schools at the end of term.
That's why I didn't post any interim reflections, but have taken my time over this one. Now, with Christmas and New Year safely behind me, I can sit back in my office and think about Term 4 and the maths we did together.
First of all, the children were totally excited to be able to plan their term's learning, but couldn't think how to make a start. We talked about just doing the things that were fun, but they really shouted that idea down because, as one of them said, "I'm moving on to [intermediate school] at the end of this term. I want to be the best me when I get to my new school." They had really taken on board the differences between learning wants and learning needs.
I provided the tools for them to identify their own personal needs. They all did the PAT maths paper on the second day back into Term 4, and I used the NZCER marking site to get the results analysed. It meant an evening of hectic answer inputting by me, but it was worth it. The next day I gave the students their individual analyses and let them have some time to really take them in and refer back to the question book to see where they had got them right and where they had slipped up.
After that, we went through as a class and collated the question numbers that students felt they needed some work on. There were clear pockets of need, and the most interesting thing is that the students picked out the same things as I had done when I looked at the class overview. This was great, because it showed me that they had really thought carefully about where their individual needs were rather than just putting down the number of every question they got wrong.
Once we had identified the areas that they wanted to work on, I asked them to come up with a plan for the order in which they wanted to do them. One student suggested putting them together in related groups rather than in question number order from the PAT, so we did that together. Then I got them to prioritise the areas. Students worked in pairs, and came up with a plan. Then they linked with another pair and discussed their ideas, coming up with a group plan. Then we came back together as a class and groups put forward their ideas. We reached consensus pretty quickly (number operations took precedence over strand work for the students; and measurement and statistics were more important to them than geometry) and soon had a working order sorted out.
After that we allocated time frames to each identified area, again working in discussion groups with students making proposals and justifying their thinking.
This was quite a long process - 2 days of discussion where little "maths teaching" was done - but I feel it was really valuable. The students had to be aware of their weaknesses (honestly), and used a whole range of logical thinking skills to prioritise and justify their choices. They also had to use oral language to propose and justify their ideas, they worked collaboratively to come to consensus and they had to be respectful of other students' ideas.
By the end of week 1 we had a term plan worked out that was totally down to the students (with a few helpful "have you thought about....?" prompts from me). They bought into it completely, they were engaged in the learning and looked forward to seeing how we were progressing through their plan. We checked it together each Monday and they were free to make amendments as we went along to take into account other things that cropped up (as they inevitably do towards the end of the school year).
All in all, I feel that this was a great example of student agency at work. The sessions ran really smoothly, and they were all highly invested in the maths programme. After all, they had chosen what to do rather than having it imposed upon them. It is worth noting that I don't think it could have happened so smoothly in Term 1, because the students had to get used to making those decisions carefully for themselves, but it was a great way to finish the year for them and I think they will move forward with confidence.
In 2017 I have a largely new class. Only 5 of my students will have been with me in 2016, but I do at least know all of the others who are moving through to me - more than I did this time last year! It will be interesting to start the Maths Cafe journey again, and to see the role that the "old hands" take in helping new classmates to adapt. The students I am gaining have a greater potential to need behaviour management help from their teacher than last year's class. I can't wait to see how we go with it, but I will keep you posted.
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