Managing Maths

At times I forget that I am a beginning teacher and expect myself to have everything perfect all of the time.  As someone who has high expectations of myself it is frustrating when I can see what I want to do and what others are doing but am still getting my head around how to put what I want to be doing into action. 

Maths is an area that I feel I should be able to teach easily because I have the content knowledge and it is a logical subject.  However, whilst Maths is logical as a learner, trying to control four maths groups number rotations, strand rotations, and set appropriate interactive work on the computers has proved slightly more challenging.  I aimed to break down what it was that was challenging me about Maths and at the start of Term 2 I set myself two goals: 1 - I would make sure that I always had appropriate equipment out for the groups that I was teaching that would allow for easy transitions between using materials and imaging and 2 - that I would get my head around the way that strand is taught at the school that I am teaching at.

Number 1 seemed to be fairly easy to sort, the materials when sourced were at the appropriate level for my children and seemed to really help my children grasp difficult concepts easily.  Number 2 was slightly more tricky but I have managed to now set up a programme that involves weekly check ins and exploration of the strand topics that I am teaching and allows me an opportunity to discover which children are struggling in which areas and why they are doing so.

However, when I got to the end of last term, I taught a unit of maths that still made my head swim.  Maths that should have looked like this:

Quickly began to look like this:

I could not for the life of me figure out why - I knew the content, I was planning weekly, I knew the teaching style that best suited my students, I was using appropriate materials and doing everything agreed upon by myself and my tutor teacher.  My tutor teacher was away during this time and so I sought the advice of a trusted colleague who has enormous amounts of experience within the mathematical field.  She was able to help me ensure that my unit looked and was manageable again but I still was not able to place my finger on the problem.

A couple of days ago, I was looking at the long term planning for Term 3 and it struck me - and became exceedingly obvious.  While I was weekly planning for maths as I did for every other subject I was doing this from a framework of making educated predictions about where the children would be.  I had no long term plan for maths.  This term we are recovering two topics that we taught in Term One and so I have created long term plans for Maths for these topics. These are not incredibly detailed and they are certainly not long and extensive but they provide me with a framework upon which to base my weekly planning for maths.

Here's hoping that these long term plans will allow me to breathe and continue to focus on exactly how I am teaching maths rather than worrying about what I am teaching and whether the lessons that I am teaching are covering what they need to and whether or not they flow well together. 

I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders! Wooo - Sometimes all it takes for things to make sense is a moment to step away from it all and breathe!

Sarah's Superheroes

 

My release teacher is head of an ICT company and provides both my students and myself with some amazing learning opportunities for how to integrate ICT effectively into our programme in a way that enhances the learning of my students. She has helped me to create a website that will record the learning, fun and excitement that happens within Room 3 - http://sarahssuperheroes.weebly.com/learning.

 

She has also shown us how to make iMovies and has create iMovies for us that capture aspects of the children's learning. Below is an example of movies that she has created about bike safety lessons that we received from a local policeman and about our music lessons.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcbwgaS38oU

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGQFfh0nVWY

Term One - Nearly Done

Wow. What a crazy term it has been. I have learnt so much about what I love in a school and about what makes me tick as a teacher - insights that I had not gained on practicums even whilst being exposed to a range of experiences. Over the next week or so I will endeavour to record as many of my thoughts as possible from my first term as a PRT.

Room Three.

Everyone always told me that my first class would be one to remember and that certainly is appearing to be true by all accounts. Twenty nine ten year olds and twenty nine distinct personalities awaited me on my first day, and, day by day I have grown to know them and love them. Behaviours of certain children have challenged what I believed to be effective behaviour management processes and thus have helped me to grow. Other children simply make me smile everyday by just being themselves.

My most entertaining moment to date with these precious children was earlier on this week. Our school had a full school mufti day where each class dressed up according to a theme. My class decided that they wanted to dress up as ninjas and all the children were very keen on the idea. That is, until one girl piped up (very seriously) concerned and asked how I was going to be able to teach them if I couldn't see them because they were ninjas.

The importance of children having an opportunity to own their learning has been highlighted time and time again this term with the children being most engaged in activities that were specific to their class and their individual needs. One of the 'units' that has thrived and the children have been fully engaged in is an inquiry unit where they are looking at what it means for them to be healthy. Through this unit the children are exploring and will continue to explore; social, emotional, mental and physical wellbeing, how community support affects someone's health, statistics, information literacy, report writing and presentation and collecting and collating data. This is a unit that was developed by the children in my class for the children in my class. All the children feel listened to and that they are contributing. In contrast to this, my students have just finished a unit where they were carrying out 'inquiry' tasks based on caves and caving. Whilst students enjoyed this topic many failed to see the relevance that it had to their lives and therefore were less stimulated by it.

The importance of having an opportunity to own both my learning and the teaching that occurs in my classroom has also become obvious. I have found that the times that I have been most frustrated in and out of my classroom have been times when I have not felt afforded the ability to exercise my professional judgement about what would most suit the needs of my students. Having the opportunity to put my PD into practise and be able to apply it instantly has had such a positive impact both on how much I am learning and how much I feel I am able to teach and help my children. As I grow as a teacher I look forward to having the confidence to suggest more of my ideas with my team so that my knowledge and up to date professional development and studies are able to benefit both my team and myself also.

Support

For a beginning teacher having an effective support structure in place is vital. I have been so lucky to have a wonderful tutor teacher, two teachers on my team that support me and help me realise the ins and outs and ups and downs of teaching and two enthusiastic and knowledgeable deputy principals that are more than happy to lend a hand the second one is needed.

My tutor teacher has been my saving grace. I feel both extremely supported and encouraged and pushed to reach my potential. Monthly observations help me to recognise whether or not I am on the right track, how well I know my students and whether or not my reflections and analysis of students are correct. Weekly meetings and the on going support and availability of this wonderful lady have meant that I feel supported and heard both inside and outside of the classroom environment.

I have two teachers on my team that are angels in disguise and help me to realise that what I am experiencing and feeling is normal and that it is important not to beat myself up. These two teachers come with experience within both this school and other schools and provide opinions and explanations that truly do help me survive some days. I am extremely fortunate to also have two wonderfully supportive deputy principals that work closely alongside me both in helping me to develop my programme and helping me to develop my sense of who I am as a professional.

I look forward to blogging about curriculum coverage and will be doing that my next blog post.