Wrapping up my first year of teaching!


My inquiry focus for this year is:

Will visible/feeding vocabulary with directed discussion increase kids language acquisition and participation within class discussions and be seen in their mathematical language?

This integrates with the Manaiakalani CoL achievement challenge #6 which is:

'Lift the achievement in maths for all students years 1-13.'



This has been a super busy term so I set out with small achievements. I decided to work closely with my Priority Learners - these are my learners who struggle to stay focussed and share their ideas in mathematics and are below standard. I worked on getting these students included and participating, speaking up about others ideas and being the scribe of the group. This was hugely beneficial and these students felt a sense of ownership to participate.


I plan on continuing what I am currently doing next year but identifying these learners earlier, hoping it will impact these learners to make a shift in their learning and language acquisition. 


At the beginning of the year, I would by lying to say I was confident to teach DMiC...  I knew I had a handful of learners that struggled to hold conversations with their peers and communicate their needs (including a bunch of ESOL students), so the thought of these students having to work together and TALK in maths frightened me. On my practicums I had observed teacher directed lessons and little student agency was given. This is one of many awesome components of DMiC, giving your students a voice and allowing them to figure it out with the teacher supporting each question. I am so pleased with how DMiC has gone this year for majority of my learners. I have seen huge progress in students achievement in maths in areas we hardly covered! Such as division, due to this new dialogic approach.


Throughout the year I kept a close eye on all students progress around their vocabulary and their participation - with the hope that if students know the correct vocabulary, they are more likely to participate. During the end of term 3, I noticed majority of students were doing really well but I wasn't quite happy with a few of my priority learners progress. I targeted these students intensely for term 4, trying to retain these words to give the confidence to speak up.

A struggle I came across was giving chances for my quiet students to speak up and my students who found maths challenging to stay engaged. This was due to the overly confident students over powering the others and answering question 1 before they had the opportunity to begin thinking about it. These students would become disengaged as the problems were far too challenging, leading to a lot of frustration. I begun to overcome this by making sure the student who seemed to be struggling, received the responsibility of being the scribe or the 'Sharer' (meaning they shared their ideas back to the class with A LOT of positive reinforcement!). This resulted in a huge increase of involvement in my Stage 1 learners, knowing they had a valuable role to partake in. I'm looking forward to using this strategy next year from day one and seeing the positive impacts it plays.








Reflecting on this year, I have so many new strategies I want to trial around participation and language acquisition within DMiC maths.

- As I reflect on the data, I realise some students struggle to retain the words we previously learnt earlier in the year. I aim to use a 'Word Wall' for mathematical terms/words with visuals, hopefully resulting in students retaining this knowledge throughout the year.
- I want to ensure that I give my priority learners a role - such as holding the pen and being the scribe, making sure they are involved in the learning process and are participating, which will gradually lead to these students having the confidence to share their own ideas (fingers crossed!)
- To start the year off next year I want to over exaggerate what 'Participation' looks like, sounds like and what they should be doing.
- This year some mornings I forgot to do 'Word of the Week'. I want this to be a huge focus next year as students seem to do really well with this and use this language in other areas - such as 'sharing'. Then these words will be placed on the 'Maths Word Wall'.



Discoveries:
- Students have excelled working collaboratively to solve mathematic equations.
- Students confidently hold discussions around a maths problem and talk about how they got the answer, followed by some students using the statement 'I did it this way...' and sharing a different strategy.
- Huge increase of students overall vocabulary with implementing word problems.
- Students engagement levels are increasingly high with word problems being culturally responsive, they instantly become motivated to solve the problem collaboratively.
- At the beginning of the year, when telling the kids it was time for maths, you would hear a very dim 'ohhhh', whereas now there is an outpour of happy cheers, what a magnificent change!
- Participation has increased as students enjoy solving problems without the teacher feeding them the knowledge beforehand and they enjoy the challenge. When students begin to struggle, they have persevered and continued to use different strategies to try and solve the problem.
- This dialogic approach has been transferred in other subject areas, students using words such as 'agreeing' and understand how to participate within group discussions and hold conversations!
- Students now have great confidence to share their ideas and thoughts in all subject areas, due to gaining an incredible amount of confidence within DMiC.

- Students would tell me their answer and I would have to say 'And how did you get that?' Now students are explaining their mathematical thinking and the strategies applied without being asked and sharing this to the group!



As I look at the data I have collated and reflect upon this year, I am extremely pleased with the achievement and progress with this inquiry. I have loved the challenges of DMiC maths in my first year of teaching and am excited to teach it with more confidence next year.


Bring on 2019!


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