Monday 5 March 2018

Success breeds success




“Success breeds success” - lack of prior success in maths has some

learners making excuses for putting in minimal effort in maths and others

struggling to focus on the task at hand; they do not know what success
in maths looks and feels like. Bad experiences and/or failure in maths
from previous years need to be addressed and new experiences/successes
created. Only one of the thirteen Maori learners have scored above the norm
in the previous year on their Progressive Achievement Test (PAT).

Giving learners autonomy over the pace at which they are working/achieving by
using the college’s Visible Teaching and Learning framework (VTaL) should give
them a clearer idea about their progress or lack thereof on a daily basis, giving
them sufficient time to seek support or to gauge their progress before sitting any
internal assessments;

Goal setting to determine quality of grade and effort/evidence needed for the
standard has given learners something to work towards. To improve student efficacy
in maths, we have been using targeted literacy strategies, like “word definition”,  
“word bank” and “mnemonics” for our Bivariate Statistics standard and
a teacher-designed template to guide learners thinking when talking
about Bivariate relationships has been shared/discussed, as seen below

Trend line, slopes uP
Positive relationship
between the variables
Both variables increase

(Use similar words)
Trend line, slopes dowN
Negative  relationship
between the variables
One variable increases
while the other decreases
(Use opposite words)
Trend line is horizontal
No relationship
between the variables
When one variable
increases, the other can
either increase or decrease
Learners are closely monitoring their progress using the ViTaL tracking sheet and
are asking for feedback on a more regular basis to either move onto the next task
or to edit existing work to a higher quality.

The teacher-designed template has given learners something to rely on when
needed and to encourage consistency when working on this standard.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the update Noelene. It is always a learning experience coming to your blog and seeing the latest approach you are taking with your young people.

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