Algebraic Thinking

 Day 5 in the Mathematics Practice Intensive covered all things algebraic!    

The biggest take away for me was the vocabulary.  This also linked with something that someone said today and I thought about how often I talk about this with my colleagues too - "Lots of students can do the maths, they just don't understand the vocabulary.  They don't understand what they are being asked to do in the question/maths problem"  I can see the value in using TIP charts a lot more regularly in my programme and a lot more revising of vocabulary.  

I also hadn't thought about the fact that all those symbols that we use daily in maths are actually crucial for algebra and also crucial for students to actually understand what they mean.  For example the good old equals sign not just meaning that something equals something else but that two sides balance, they are the same. 

I think it has been fair to say that Algebra has been a strand of maths that we teach but perhaps as a stand alone topic when it should be integrated throughout.  If you actually look at what algebra is, we are teaching it throughout our maths programme but I don't think we are being specific enough about it being algebra.  The changes I am going to make to specifically teach the vocabulary that goes with it and what it is, will hopefully stop students from feeling like algebra is a topic to be feared!  

The brilliance of algebra problems is that they can also be used to cover some choral counting, shared visual representations of what problems actually mean and number talk strategies.  

I am heading away to rethink my maths sessions.  Is there a way that I can include the choral counting, number talk strategies and algebraic concepts/vocabulary more regularly into my maths daily/weekly planning?

Number : Whole and Rational

Day 4 in the Mathematics Practice Intensive covered Number but more explicitly the parts of number that our students find to be their sticking points, those parts of number that students seem to struggle with.  So as you can probably guess this included Place Value, Fractions, Decimals, Percentages and Integers.

Dorothy's reminder of what RAT stands for was very timely and it is always great to refresh your knowledge of our Manaiakalani pedagogy.  Recognise Effective Practice, Amplify Effective Practice and Turbocharge Effective Practice.  I really thought about the Turbocharging part of our teaching and learning today and how I can really embed students reflecting on their learning through the use of our technology and also building up their confidence in their maths discussions.

Choral Counting was a great reminder...another one of those strategies that I used to do but has been lost along the way somewhere.  I can see that this will be brilliant to bring back as I start to teach my students about fractions and decimals.  

New learning for me today was something called a TIP chart.  I have used something similar but have never come across the TIP acronym before.  This will definitely be added to my teacher toolkit for weekly planning and not just in maths, I can see it being used very nicely in lots of areas.

My focus going forward is to complete some teaching and learning in the areas of fractions and decimals to see where my students' knowledge is.  I will be finding all of those manipulatives - physical and digital - to make this journey as clear as possible.