Teaching as Inquiry Focus for 2017

 Welcome to 2017.

I am looking forward to a great year ahead. I strongly believe that every student can learn given the time and opportunity. Together we can accomplish something amazing.

This year our school wide focus is Maths. After analysing the data from last year, meeting with parents and using my own teacher judgement I have identified a target group of children who are struggling to count sequentially from 1 to 5. They have difficulty understanding, for example: What 4 looks like or what it means. I am wondering about starting from the concrete and slowly moving toward the abstract using lots of  concrete materials. Based on my previous practice I know the the difference using the iPad to record their learning or show evidence of their learning has been valuable. I need to under how best to design learning including the use of iPads to best support these learners. My next steps will be spend some time researching effective maths pedagogy and making connections to the affordances of the technology and Learn, Create, Share.

Image Attribution:

       https://pixabay.com/en/numbers.

Focussing Inquiry Hypothesise

Through further focussing my inquiry I am fairly confident that my hypothesise data showed children struggled to count from 1-5. After further focus my hunch is that children have not experienced learning, they have limited vocabulary, limited language to say back to me, limited vocabulary and ability to connect language and concepts and most importantly they lack the confidence to share their ideas.

Focussing Inquiry Reflection

This year I have older Year One children, many of them started school last year. The children that I am looking at as my priority learners started school in June, August and late November 2016. My reflection on focussing inquiry is based on their JAM data that was done in November 2016. The data showed that children were working on, developing one to one matching for numbers 1-10 using mathematical equipment. They had difficulty identifying numbers from 1-5 and were inconsistent with their counting. I had conversations with their past teachers, their parents at meet the teacher and used my OTJ from my group lessons to gather evidence about there progress.

Looking at all this evidence and information I think that the problem is that they have difficulty understanding numbers and their value. They may identify the number 2 by rote learning but cannot show using equipment what 2 looks like what does 2 mean.

Therefore I have decided to target these children and work on sequential counting, developing one to one matching for numbers 1-5 then 1-10 using a variety of resources starting from the concrete and slowly moving to the abstract.

Inquiry Focus: End of Term 3

During the term we have been learning about retelling the story in our own words focussing on the beginning, middle and end of the story. This video clip shows what we have been doing thus far.
 
Inquiry-Reading Term 3 from Team 1 PES on Vimeo.

Reading

Inquiry Focus Term 2 July from Team 1 PES on Vimeo.

Inquiry Focus Update - Term 2

My inquiry was looking at Reading and helping children learn and spell high frequency words fast and fluency. The Explain Everything Spelling Test activity presented in my earlier blog post is used by a group of children almost everyday. The children are showing growth in confidence, they know how to spell some words fast and accurately and at the same time they know that they can search for the word on the alphabet card or ask for assistance from their peers or the teacher. They are aware of which words they know and what word to learn next.  They starting to notice shape of letters and use their letter sound knowledge to write words.
It is a difficult concept  for our little ones but they just need to keep revisiting and continue practicing until they know it and can make connections when reading these words in different contexts.

To aide this process I have started doing spelling tests. They have been successful and I have a group children who just love the competition and the rewards. They are making pleasing progress and I now I am adding words that they will need in their writing and come across in their reading. For my priority learners we have been introducing one new word per week.

"Slow and steady wins the race."

In conclusion I will continue with what I am doing and create more activities on Explain Everything to help my children move forward.

Spelling Test on Explain Everything.

Inquiry Term 2