This afternoon we met in our school inquiry groups. These are groups within the school that come together and share how our inquiries are going twice a term. As a school we are all focussing on maths this year, and our individual inquiries have come from targeting our own needs and the needs of our class under that umbrella.
What is really interesting (yet logical) is that throughout different year levels in the school, there is lots of cases of the same issues, low basic facts, place value confusion, and lack of consolidation being the most common.
Being Term 2 we have all tried a lot more in our classrooms, and instead of sharing and listening to each other's inquiries, we could actually engage in real discussion about how we are attempting to overcome some of these challenges. In many cases we have come to the same conclusions, and are attempting the similar changes to our practice. However other ideas were new to me, and gave me great ideas to try. It was just really nice to be able to problem solve and have those discussions with other people in the same boat.
I did reflect that if these are common problems in my own school, then they are probably common problems throughout the country, if not the world. I need to do some more research, as it is rather big headed of me to believe that I can solve the worlds problems on my own.
What is really interesting (yet logical) is that throughout different year levels in the school, there is lots of cases of the same issues, low basic facts, place value confusion, and lack of consolidation being the most common.
Being Term 2 we have all tried a lot more in our classrooms, and instead of sharing and listening to each other's inquiries, we could actually engage in real discussion about how we are attempting to overcome some of these challenges. In many cases we have come to the same conclusions, and are attempting the similar changes to our practice. However other ideas were new to me, and gave me great ideas to try. It was just really nice to be able to problem solve and have those discussions with other people in the same boat.
I did reflect that if these are common problems in my own school, then they are probably common problems throughout the country, if not the world. I need to do some more research, as it is rather big headed of me to believe that I can solve the worlds problems on my own.
I like your conclusion! So how do we harness the power of the group(s) who are all inquiring into the same big challenges and SHARE a synthesis of the approaches that had had success?
ReplyDeleteHey Matt, I read your conclusion and was thinking "yes!" I totally agree! I myself am undertaking my own inquiry into using create and share tasks to engage students in Numeracy. What are some of the key ideas that you have tried that you think make the most impact for your learners?
ReplyDeleteI have had some success with alternating between 'rote learning' style lessons where I really just want something to be memorised, and then authentic experiences where the knowledge is used in a creative way.
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