Reflection about ideas in 'The Elephant in the Classroom.'

So I have been reading Jo Boaler's book some more and I've tried some more things in class. I am reflecting where I am at right this moment with my thinking.

On her Youcubed website, Jo has some lesson plans for an 'inspirational week of math'. I have shared this at a staff meeting with our staff and got them to work through one of the activities on there.

She has three weeks worth there for my level so I thought I would give it a go. In this learning stage (for me) it is helpful to have someone do all the thinking for me to help me get started and give me some direction. There are 5 days of learning planned for each week. They are planned out in great detail so it is easy to follow and I love the supporting videos that go with them. So far I have discovered that most of her lessons seem to take longer than she specified. One of them we have been doing for a week that was only supposed to be one lesson. 

The approach that I have chosen is mixed ability grouping. I have grouped the students to vary the skills, strengths and abilities within each. So far I have had some trouble with the students not being very good at working in the group. Here are some of the problems

- Students not listening to one another

- Students taking over and bossing others around

- Students arguing over 'who is right' and 'who is wrong' instead of accepting different ways to do things.

- Students letting other students do all the work so they can cruise and not engage in the thinking

- Students being told to 'just copy' an answer when they don't understand so the group can move on.

- Students telling their group mates they don't understand but their group mates go ahead without them instead of taking the time to help them to understand.

- Students giving up because working together is too hard. What this looks like is, people working on their own instead of with their group or a group splitting into pairs that work with each other but not the rest of the group.

The failure was a positive step I believe and I am glad it happened, because it meant we could establish some rules and criteria around what it means to be in a group and work with others. What sort of behaviour and attitudes are expected and what are not appropriate? We came up with a list of positive behaviours that should be identifiable when our group works together. Even with the list of positive behaviours, created BY the students themselves, they were still struggling to display them. I have reflected on the root of this problem.

My biggest problem in my class is actually not lack of ability in maths or even the ability to work with others. If I was to identify the greatest barrier, it would all come down to the fixed mindset of some students in the class.

Here are some examples

- I don't know what to do. I give up. It's easier to copy my group mates and go along with it even though I don't understand. = Fixed mindset

- Working together is hard so I am going to work by myself. I give up working in my group. = Fixed mindset 

- My group is mucking around and the work will only get done if I do it. So I am just going to do everything. I give up group trying to work with them cos it's too hard. = Fixed mindset 

- My group mate doesn't understand. It's hard to explain it to them and make them understand. I give up so I will just move on without them. = Fixed mindset 

- I don't want to work with these people so I am just not going to try. = Fixed mindset

- I wanted to be the leader but I didn't get to be so I am not going to listen to the leader. = Fixed mindset

- I'm not the bad one in my group. They are the ones not doing the right thing. I give up trying to work with them cos it's not working. = Fixed mindset

Even 'well behaved' students are demonstrating a fixed mindset. They think they are maintaining peace or even getting the work done for the group so as not to 'get in trouble' but they are contributing to the problem by allowing their peers to demonstrate this mindset an enabling it.

Giving up is not an option. Persistence is important. This is how we learn. It's not easy when your group is not working together well but you need to be committed to working through the problems together as a team. It's an important life skill! They must be accountable and they must make insist that their team mates are accountable even if it is tough.

We have to do some more learning about what I like to call 'Living above the line' and 'living below the line'. I have a graphic on this that I will share with my class but I am going to make a specific one for Maths and put it on our Maths wall as a reminder that our progress is greatly impacted by our attitude. Our attitude also greatly impacts the learning of others. I will place the list of problems they came up with on it below the line and the solutions they came up with above it so they can visually see it. We will refer back to it daily until it is embedded in our practices.

I feel like our greatest focus in Maths at the moment is actually establishing a positive learning  culture (which includes a growth mindset) rather than the actual maths concepts. Once this is well set up, it will pave the way for learning later in the year, but without this culture, students are going to be impacted negatively with their achievement in Maths as a result. I can't just tell students the way to behave and what to believe. They will learn best from their experiences. This is why I am okay with the fact that our groups are having some problems. The problems will help them grow.

Let's hope the next time I reflect on how my groups are going, I will see some positive changes and evidence of growth mindsets.

Maths Grouping

I have just read this article about mixed ability/flexible maths grouping.

https://nzareblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/grouping-primary-maths/

I actually haven't had ability groups for quite a few years now. The main reason for this was that within each group, no child is the same and they all have different goals and learning needs.
Instead my learning groups have been personalised so that students only attend workshops with the teacher when they are trying to meet one of their specific learning goals. Even then, they don't have to come to the teacher in order to do that. They can learn from each other or even teach themselves in many cases.
Now I am feeling confused. As I continue to read The Elephant in the Classroom by Jo Boaler, I am beginning to have more questions than answers about how to set up my maths programme.
It seems to me (so far based on where I am up to in the book), that the best way to teach Maths would be to put students into mixed ability groups and give them all the same rich problems to solve. The problem with this is, how do I track individual progress. How do students track their own. Will students be learning important stuff that they need to know? Yes but how can I ensure that every aspect is covered? How do I continue to build the number knowledge aspect?
I do think the learning will still be personalised in that each child will take different things from each problem based on their level of prior knowledge. Therefore they will take from it what they need to even if they don't exactly know what that is.
So far I have been following Jo's inspirational week of Maths lessons found here.
https://www.youcubed.org/week-inspirational-math/
There is no doubt in my mind that these types of lessons are highly engaging and my students are absolutely buzzing about Maths. They are all learning new things and they are all learning different things from each other (hence the personalised aspect). This is great and this is what real Maths is all about but how do I show evidence of progress and learning?
I guess one way would be to create a list of key concepts and get students to self-assess and highlight which things they understand as we go along.
Also maybe I could get the students to do an independent reflection at the end of each Maths lesson stating what they learned. At the moment we reflect as a whole class and each group shares their findings. An individual reflection might look like:
E.g. Today I learned...

•  that a prime number is a number that cannot be divided by any number other than itself and 1 without a remainder. 
• That 2 is a prime number
• That 1 is not a prime numbner
• That all of the prime numbers are odd numbers apart from 2 but not all odd numbers are prime.
• That the first 5 prime numbers are 2, 5, 7, 11 and 13.

I am going to have to keep thinking on this one I think. Coming up with some kind of sheet with the content knowledge/strategies on might be helpful. This will be a challenging task though because most of these rich tasks touch on knowledge across different levels. I could probably start with Stages 6, 7 & 8 Number Knowledge as so far we have been covering mostly content at Stage 7. I don't have anyone in the class who has passed Stage 7 yet but I will soon.

Basically it is a work in progress but I can see such value and benefit in what I am doing that I must continue. The way it is impacting on my students' attitudes and beliefs about Maths is already changing even after such a short time. I am amazed at how excited everyone is during Maths time especially when they discover something new. I am also loving how students who are considered 'below' in Maths are achieving and feeling really good about themselves.