OTF- Teaching and Learning Co-op

As a primary math coach I collaborated with Kindergarten, grade 1, 2 and grade 3 teachers. The goal of this inquiry was to engage in professional learning in Guided Math.

Our aim was to organize the math program to allow students to meet with the teacher for guided math instruction and engage in purposeful activities to develop students’ conceptual and procedural understanding of mathematics.

The guided math workshop elements included:

· a problem of the day, number of the day

· Whole class mini-lesson

· Math centers/Guided Math groups

· Math strategy practice

· Share/consolidation of learning

Our focus was to identify what mathematical thinking looks like, sounds like (identifying the mathematical processes) and determine where students are in their developmental understanding of mathematics.

Question: What key learning are you hoping to gain as a result of your participation in the Guided Math Inquiry?

• Good Teaching strategies/tips of how to teach various math content in small groups
• What is it? Is it different than what I already do? I'd like to improve what I'm already doing-hope this will help.
• To teach how to use manipulatives in the thinking process. Show different ways of solving a problem. To spread the open mindedness among the students
• Support students with problem solving, inquiry based, hands-on, conceptual understanding and purposeful learning in numeracy
• fun games, play methods to teach or help students practice different concepts taught in class.

We began the inquiry with the following resources.

Guided Math in Action by Dr. Nicki Newton, provided an outline for how to structure our math program. The PRIME resource allowed us to conduct a diagnostic assessment that was part of our triangulation of data when determine how to organize students into guided math groups.

The video discussed teachers’ thoughts after reading the book and having some time to engage in guided math.

As the inquiry progressed, teachers expressed a need to gather materials to create math centres and resources that would assist with generating math problems for the problem solving component of guided math.

• Begin at the beginning of the school year establishing routines
• Centres can reinforce concepts already covered
• Looking at the cycle of assessment to determine growth in student learning
• Creating appropriate learning activities takes time

Instructional Coach

PDSB