Northern Metropolitan Region Achievement Improvement Zones SESSION 7: SOME PEDAGOGIES MAKING GROUP...

Northern Metropolitan Region

Achievement Improvement Zones

SESSION 7: SOME PEDAGOGIES

MAKING GROUP WORK WORK STUDENT MOTIVATION

Peter Sullivan Sue Gunningham



Overview

• Looking back• Some pedagogies• Group work• Motivation



The program overall consists of1. Program overview and mathematics teaching principles.

2. Using data as the basis of planning and teaching, including the data from AIM.

3. Enhancing the student experience – building understanding

4. Templates for mathematics teaching – building understanding

5. Enhancing the student experience – engaging students by increasing choices

6. Templates for mathematics teaching – engaging students by increasing choices

7. Pedagogies – developing classroom culture, ways of fostering group work, and differentiating tasks

8. Sustaining the initiative



The program overall consists of1. Program overview and mathematics teaching principles.

2. Using data as the basis of planning and teaching, including the data from AIM.

3. Enhancing the student experience – building understanding

4. Templates for mathematics teaching – building understanding

5. Enhancing the student experience – engaging students by increasing choices

6. Templates for mathematics teaching – engaging students by increasing choices

7. Pedagogies – developing classroom culture, ways of fostering group work, and differentiating tasks

8. Sustaining the initiative

Evaluate

Explore

Explain

Elaborate

Engage



Review of sessions

• Session 1– consider lesson study as a process for teacher

learning– examine some principles of effective mathematics

teaching

• Session 2• - using data to inform teaching and learning



Review of session 3 & 4

• experience some illustrative activities which contribute to building understanding of mathematics

• And at the same time enhance the experience of learning mathematics



Review of session 5 & 6

• experience some activities which illustrate how making choices is engaging and

• at the same time enhances the student experience of learning mathematics



Comparison with the seven steps for reading

• Get knowledge ready• Learn the vocab• Read aloud• Paraphrase the text• Say questions the text answers• Summarise the text• Review the text and what you have learnt



Some guiding principles for all lessons

• Find out what students know and don’t know• Make explicit to students your goals for their learning• Have most of the class working beyond their current levels of

understanding• Communicate to students that you believe they can learn and

expect they will• Feedback

– What am I meant to be doing– How am I going– Where am I going next



Reporting back from classroom explorations



A critical incident



The purpose of session 7 is for participants to:

• consider the issues associated with creating a classroom in which students can try hard and take risks, while feeling safe; and

• experience a group learning activity involving explicit roles.



Focus 2: Enabling prompts



What are enabling prompts?• Enabling prompts can involve slightly varying an

aspect of the task demand, such as – the form of representation, – the size of the numbers, or – the number of steps,

so that a student experiencing difficulty can proceed at that new level, and then if successful can proceed with the original task.

• This approach can be contrasted with the more common requirement that such students – listen to additional explanations; or – pursue goals substantially different from the rest of the

class.



This approach is not new …• Association of Teachers of Mathematics produced a

handbook (ATM, 1988) described 34 different strategies that teachers might use when intervening while students are working. There were 14 specific suggestions related to interventions to support students experiencing difficulty, about half of which relate to specific prompts for students experiencing difficulty.



Some examples of enabling prompts

For the task:

What letters can you draw with an area of exactly 10 square units (using only whole squares)?



• One letter can be given as an example• Use 10 square tiles to make letters• Make any shape of 10 square units• Make any shape and count the squares• …



Focus 3: Extending prompts

• For students who finish quickly (actually after allowing half squares– How many different letters can you make– Are there some letters you cannot make– What words can you make using only 10 squares

per letter– What if it was 11 squares?– …



Focus 4: LEARNING COMMUNITY• a deliberate intention is that all students progress

through learning experiences in ways that allow them to feel part of a class community and contribute to it, including being able to participate in reviews and summative class discussions about the work.

• all students will benefit from participation in at least some core activities that can form the basis of common discussions and shared experience, both social and mathematical, as well as a common basis for any following lessons and assessment items on the same topic.



Task review (building community)

• A key challenge in the common discussions is the way that teachers manage the contributions of the students.

• Teacher must observe what students are doing, so that they can choose contributors to the discussion in an appropriate sequence, perhaps from least sophisticated to more sophisticated.



Focus 5: Explicit pedagogies

• That there can be multiple answers• That creativity is allowed• That group work is for learning• (Students need a language to describe their

experience)• …



Focus 6: Learning Trajectory



Here are some length tasks

• Plan a unit of work on length• What tasks would you select?• What order would you do them?



• Find something in the room longer than this string• Cut a streamer so that it is longer than your hand

but shorter than your foot• What are some words you could use to describe

parts of a box to show how big it is?• What are some words to describe a tree to show

how big it is?



Which is longer, the horizontal or the vertical line?



• Find something that is about 2 shoes long.• Find something that is longer than 2 shoes but

shorter than 3.• Write your name using matches• Write your name on grid paper using only the

lines



• Michael and Monica measured the basketball court. Michael said it was 20 rulers long. Monica said it was 19 ½ rulers long. How could this happen?

• Are you a tall rectangle?



• A chameleon has a tongue that is half as long as its body ...

• … how long would your tongue be if you were a chameleon?



• On your page, draw a line that is 1 m long• Find something that is longer that 30 cm but

less than 40 cm?



• Write your name using a line 1 metre long• Find something that is twice as long as it is

wide• Broken ruler• How many different rectangles can you make

using a string that is 1 m long?



What order would you do these tasks (if at all)



Making group work work



Why groups?

• (at least some) Learning is social• Real problems are complex and

multidimensional• Learning to co-operate has two way benefits

– Have a friend, be a friend



Some specific advice

• Avoid using group work for class control– Worst case scenario of teaching

• Allow students time to have something to contribute– Think, pair, share

• Explain why you are using groups• Teach and practice required social skills



More advice (for the teacher)

• Promote – group interdependence– positive feelings to the group

• Promote individual and group accountability• Celebrate thinking and effort• Support student-student exchanges with tools and

resources– Structuring the physical environment– Student roles



A group activity with roles



There are 3 roles, with 1 observer

• In addition, we want everyone to:– actively listen– use eye contact and names– ask for help (within the group) if you need it



The group roles

• coach• keeping things going• making sure everyone knows



Observers

• Report to the group on what you saw (this is a learning experience)



In groups of 3 (with an observer), work on the following question

• The surface area of a closed box (rectangular prism) is 94 sq cm. What might be the volume?

At the end, I will choose individuals, and I will hold the whole group accountable for the way that that individual responds.



Roles

• Did the roles help?



MAKING STUDENTS MORE AWARE OF INFLUENCES ON THEIR MOTIVATION

• 2 suggestions



Thought

Your friend says that their principal does

not like them



Thought


not like them

How does you friend feel?

DisappointedDiscouraged



Thought


not like them



How does your friend behave?

Reluctant to do thingsTalks in staff

meetings



Thought


not like them




Talks in meetingsDoesn’t complete

forms

How does the principal

respond?

principal thinks your friend is

lazy



Thought


not like them




Talks in workshopDoesn’t do readings

How does the principal

respond?

principal thinks your friend is

lazy

?



• What is your advice to your friend? • What is your advice to the principal?



Using thought cycles

• Do a thought cycle together as a class• Have the students build a cycle starting from a

negative thought• Decide whether the cycle continues or not• Decide whether the cycles can be broken• Repeat for a positive thought• They make their own cycles related to their

learning



Enhancing student self-regulation



One potentially negative influence can be negative peer pressure



A story – this happened tome



Purpose of this intervention

• The hypothesis is that if a student becomes more aware of his/her individual responses in comparison with the group responses overall, and if they consider possible implication of their responses, this might allow more active decisions on the connections between their current effort, their learning and future opportunities.



The procedure

• Survey completed in class• Presentation of results as class graphs• Clarify interpretation• Class discussion with key elements recorded• Transcription of tapes • Selection of extracts



In my maths class, there are some student who don’t try hard because they are afraid of what

other students might think of them



One of the groups connected effort and ability:

• “Because if you try hard in maths, people think you’re a nerd and then you get teased. Because if you’re smart usually no one likes you, as in they don’t not like you but they just call you names because you’re smart, and when you’re not smart they just…”



Does deliberatively underperforming have an adverse effect on later opportunities?

• “If you’re at school and you sit down and you have to do maths or something, you’re not really thinking…like, if someone asks you a question, ‘Will maths affect what job you get when you’re older,’ you can like sit down and think about it, you go, of course it’s going to affect it. But when you sit down in maths, to do your maths after recess or lunch or whatever, you don’t really think ‘what I do right now is going to affect what I’m doing in 15 or 20 years. “



Some comments offered starting points for some subsequent intervention

• “It’s good to be smart because then you know stuff, and if you’re dumb just so your friends like you then it’s really bad. Obviously they’re not your friends if they make you be dumb to be their friend.”



Another one

• “…if you’re playing (sport) and you mess up or something and you have a kick and it falls short or it goes out of bounds on the full where it shouldn’t, if you have someone on your team that says, ‘You’ll get the next one,’ you’re more confident to keep playing, but if someone is like, ‘What are you doing?’ …”



Finishing off the open-ended questions section



Some more open-ended questions

• What two fractions add to give ¾?



• What numbers can be rounded off to 5.8?



• Draw some shapes that have exactly 6 internal right angles.



Making questions open

Method 1:• Write down a question and work out the

answer.• Make up a new question that includes the

answer as part of the question.



Example:

• Step 1. A typical question on rounding off is

Round off 1.29 to the nearest tenth.

• Step 2. The answer is 1.3.

• Step 3. An open-ended task could be

• What numbers when rounded off become 1.3?



Method 2.

• Write down a complete question including the answer.

• Remove some of the question parts.



Example:

• Step 1. The topic for tomorrow is addition of fractions.

• Step 2. A typical question might be • 1/3 + ¼ = 7/12• Step 3. Progressively removing numbers

and replacing them with blanks gets us to a task like

• 1/? + 1/? = ?/?

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Northern Metropolitan Region Achievement Improvement Zones SESSION 7: SOME PEDAGOGIES MAKING GROUP...

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