Professional learning
During 2010, the Mathematics Unit Curriculum K-12 Directorate will be supporting teachers through a number of projects. These include:
Count Me In Too Facilitator project: This project is part of the Early Literacy and Numeracy Initiative (ELNI). Up to eight schools per region have been nominated by the regions to participate during 2010. The project is designed to support the on-going implementation of CMIT. Local facilitators will work within their schools in leading the professional learning of the school project team. Professional learning will be provided to the school facilitators through a number of video conferences throughout the year.
Count Me In Too Online: The Count Me In Too Online Project will focus on using the 123 Count with me CD-ROM with school teams in an online professional development course to strengthen and maintain the Count Me In Too Program.The 123 Count with me CD ROM will be used in conjunction with a discussion site, emails, video and teleconferencing to develop the corresponding ICT skills. School teams will identify a team leader who will coordinate the program within the school and facilitate local discussion and the teams will be supported by an Online mentor. Schools have nominated to participate in this project for 2010.
Taking Off With Numeracy: Taking Off With Numeracy is a program designed to assist teachers to identify where students’ solution methods in mathematics are breaking down, and provide explicit guidance to move the student beyond the identified hurdle. In particular, as Taking Off With Numeracy focuses on improving numeracy in Stage 2 and Stage 3, greater emphasis is given to the teaching sequence related to developing place value, as it underpins the four operations and decimals.
Taking Off With Numeracy offers both a whole-class program and a targeted in-class intervention. Teachers are supported in delivering a diagnostic assessment to determine where students are having most problems. The intervention group then operates on a case-managed process with expert advice provided to the teacher using a secure web-portal.
Participating schools will continue to work on the project during 2010.
What does the research tell us?
Learning is enhanced when teachers:
- pay attention to the knowledge and beliefs that learners bring to a learning task
- use this knowledge as a starting point for new instruction
- monitor students' changing conceptions as instruction proceeds.
Implications for teaching
Teachers must draw out and work with the pre-existing understandings that their students bring with them. The teacher must actively inquire into students’ thinking, creating classroom tasks and conditions under which student thinking can be revealed. Assessment must tap understanding rather than merely the ability to repeat facts or perform isolated skills.
Teachers must teach some subject matter in depth, providing many examples in which the same concept is at work and providing a firm foundation of factual knowledge. Superficial coverage of all topics in a subject area must be replaced with in-depth coverage of fewer topics that allows key concepts to be understood.
The teaching of metacognitive skills (i.e. thinking about how you think) should be integrated into the curriculum.
Are some teaching techniques better than others?
Is lecturing always a poor way to teach? Is cooperative learning effective? Do attempts to use computers help achievement or hurt it? These are the wrong questions! Asking which teaching technique is best is akin to asking which tool is best - a hammer, a screwdriver or pliers? In teaching, the selection of tools depends on the task at hand and the materials one is working with. There is no universal best teaching practice.
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