This year I have been inquiring into maths. Specifically how focussing on knowledge can help to lift the achievement of my learners working "below" the national average. This post is about one of those learners, and to maintain the anonymity of this learner I'll just call him Charmander (Charmander is a Pokemon character and has otherwise zero relevance to any of this).Charmander was one of the boys in my target group. At the beginning of the year I noticed that this group in particular appeared to be attempting higher level strategies than what their maths knowledge would allow them to be successful with. Basically they didn't have the level of maths knowledge they needed to use higher level strategies and therefore I believed were underachieving in maths, according to the national standards.
Throughout the year I have been inquiring into how I can lift maths knowledge in the hope that by lifting their knowledge, that their achievement will follow. I believe that within this inquiry Charmander has been successful. Here is quick snapshot of his maths data for the year:
What I noticed in group work was a huge lift in confidence and enthusiasm towards basic facts. Charmander's eyes no longer glazed over when he saw a times table above the 2's, nor did he give up a the mention of division. Instead he became invested in learning his basic facts, and "knowing them" became a form of competition amongst the group.
His improvement is also evident on his blog, not just in the quality and and evidence of his thinking, but also by the number of posts he has been completing and sharing. The image below clearly shows that he has increased the level of thinking he is putting into his blog posts when sharing.
Well done Charmander.
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