– Knowledge Bank Case Study Template –

Contact details

Tony Carroll

Eaglehawk Secondary College, 5441 7155 and

Title

Stage related teaching in Mathematics with an emphasis on independent learning

Abstract

The project aimed to improve student engagement by pitching the learning to the student’s point of need and allowing them to work at a pace that best suited them. Two main foci that developed as the project progressed were the need for a one stop shop for a wide variety of student and teacher resources and the facilitation of explicit teaching.

Key words

Mathematics, stage related, differentiated curriculum, independent learning, online resources

1. Introduction

This TPL project came out of a Regional initiative but as a school, we had definite needs that needed to be addressed. Too many of our maths students were falling through the cracks. Our better students were not being challenged and our weaker students not adequately supported. By year 9 students had pigeonholed themselves as good (but not brilliant), ordinary or crap maths students and our curriculum structure supported this. As a KLA last year we had experimented with more innovative and differentiated curriculum and begun to get the support of the KLA for changed practice. Our project was about fixing what we considered was broken and taking the KLA along for the ride. Our Ultimate goal was to reinvent the maths curriculum. What we achieved was to change the culture in the KLA to accept change and to begin the process of trialling what the curriculum may look like in the future.

2. How did the idea for the project come about?

Our college is being rebuilt as part of a Regional initiative called the Bendigo Education Plan. This plan has taken all five local Secondary Colleges, closed one and is in the process of rebuilding four. All 4 have common design parameters and are based on a neighbourhood model (flexible open teaching spaces) in accordance with the curriculum direction written into the plan. At our school a neighbourhood will hold up to 100 students. Our future maths curriculum had to fit this new physical environment as well as the curriculum plan underlining it. The TPL came out of the need to work on this new curriculum. Our focus was however driven by the points in the previous paragraph.

3. Why was this project important?

A large reason for the Bendigo Education Plan was recognition that as schools, our outcomes were not as good as they could be. This was definitely the case at our school for maths. We were also entering a new phase in the maths KLA. Many long term teachers had moved on and a new group of young and enthusiastic teachers had come on board. They could see the problems with current practice and found disengaged students difficult to manage in class. Our curriculum documentation was in disarray and access to some grants had sown the seeds for change the previous year.

4. What was done/what was produced?

Officially the project has produced a local website called Maths@ESC which supports two units which have been trialled across whole year levels from year 7-9. A database has been developed which helps to manage the new curriculum structure. Unofficially many teachers have picked up on many of the key philosophies and run with them in their other classes.

5. What was innovative about the project/practice?

We have not created a unit that all students work through together. Instead we have created a “mega” unit which is a continuum from level 4 to level 6. The idea is that all students work on the same unit at the same time but tap into it at their point of need based on pre testing and teacher judgement. The mega unit is separated into mini units (an example of one is appendix 2), each of which are aligned to a progression point. This forced us to think more critically about which skills matched which progression points. Students were presented with the unit that matched where they were at. Students then had freedom to work on the unit at a pace that best suited them. Because different students needed different resources at different times, the website, Maths@ESC (a graphic of the homepage is given as appendix 1), was created. This gave students access to electronic texts, worksheets and web (or network) based activities and scope for expansion such as electronic tutorials. A deliberate intention was to provide a more standardized experience for students from one class to the next and so each class teaches to the same units. Our philosophy was also that if an activity was worthwhile, it should be written into this curriculum, i.e. all classes should experience it. All of the above may not sound particularly innovative but it was a significant departure from current practice. In the new school we envisage situations where students of differing ages potentially work together as the curriculum is stage related, not age related. We have also trialled daily student reflections (provided as appendix 3) with which we experienced limited success. The greatest issue was rushed implementation and a lack of training with the teachers and the students. This will probably be refined at a later date and incorporated into the daily life of students and not limited to just maths.

6. How did you measure its impact on teaching and learning? What was its impact?

The main impact of the project has been the change in teacher practice, professional conversations (robust and frequent) and preparedness to embrace change. The students enjoyed the unit in the main but we learnt that students had to be “taught” how to work in this new environment. Different outcomes have occurred in different classes as you would expect. Our first trial ran simultaneously over 13 classes at years 7 and 8. Of these only one class did not enjoy it. Some totally embraced it and have continued to work in this mode between trial periods. Not surprisingly, these teachers totally embraced the new model. Not being a longitudinal study, the impact on student outcomes cannot be effectively understood but anecdotal evidence suggests that some of our brighter students have enjoyed opportunity to progress more quickly and more needy students have been more engaged as the tasks provided have not been so daunting. Documenting curriculum and resources online (pointers to where resource belongs or printable material) has been a great benefit and essential in what have become very busy classrooms. Based on early success, the second trial also included four of our year 9 classes. This is significant as the impetus for this was poor student engagement, difficult student management and teacher request!

7. What went well & why? What didn’t work so well? How did you deal with these issues?

An obvious benefit has been the increased ease in reporting against the VELS. Most teachers have reported that student management has not been a problem and that some otherwise disengaged students have been better in class. Interestingly some normally engaged or partially engaged students seemed to drift and at times get a little lost in the unit. One of the great challenges with this mode of teaching is keeping regular contact with all students to ensure that they progress from one lesson to the next. The increased busyness of the room makes this a real challenge. Creating units that include a good mix of learning activities will be a continuing challenge as our first attempts have been a little safe and have not met our own benchmarks. The greatest challenge (and perhaps the greatest opportunity for criticism) is managing to explicitly teach students at appropriate points with so much going on at once. This is probably where much energy needs to be devoted into the future (working with teachers) as the differences between teacher practice is greatest here. Encouraging is that some teachers appear to have it under control now and the advent of more technology rich environments will assist into the future.

It is worth noting at this point that we were all set to go at the start of the year but it took a whole term to get the team all pulling in the same direction. However this is also one of the learnings as this investment paid dividends later. The other learning was that in semester one, we made real headway as we had common planning time. This progress has stalled in semester two as other school priorities have taken precedence. Not only has the level of development dried up but it has placed stress on the team. Willingness was not the issue.

8. What are your future plans i.e., is the project/practice ongoing? How?

At this point in time the KLA has a commitment to pursue this model into the new school. The plan is to abandon the concept of advanced, general and everyday maths at years 9 and 10 and for students to work on a maths continuum from years 7 to 10. They will not be defined by which class they take but by what they achieved. One of the key resource issues has been the availability in class for students of the textual material required for a particular activity. Because the curriculum is a continuum, they may require an activity from the year level below or above at a point in time. In 2009 we have taken a new tack with text books. We have negotiated a site licence for the college network of all of the electronic texts from year 5 to year 10 from a new supplier. These will be supplemented by sets of paper copies in class. Students will receive a CD ROM with an electronic copy of each of the texts which they will keep at home. We believe that this strategy will solve most of our text based resource issues and continue the impetus for stage relating the curriculum.

9. Appendices

1  The Home page for the “Maths@ESC” website

2  An example of how a unit was presented to students – created in FilemakerPro

3  An example of students reflection sheets


Below is a close approximation of a Daily Maths reflection Journal. Students were asked to fill this in at the end of each lesson with teacher direction

Daily Maths Journal for ______

A place for daily, honest, reflection on your progress in Maths.

The top four items use a 1-5 scale where 5 is excellent and 1 indicates a poor performance. When absent, write the date and the reason for the absence.

Day
Date / Worked Hard / Use of Time / Cooperation / Personal Satisfaction
What I Learnt Today
What I had Trouble with Today / Got Help?
Homework For Tonight / Completed
In Diary
Day
Date / Worked Hard / Use of Time / Cooperation / Personal Satisfaction
What I Learnt Today
What I had Trouble with Today / Got Help?
Homework For Tonight / Completed
In Diary
Day
Date / Worked Hard / Use of Time / Cooperation / Personal Satisfaction
What I Learnt Today
What I had Trouble with Today / Got Help?
Homework For Tonight / Completed
In Diary

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