Courtenay Elementary School SD#71 Comox Valley

I. General Information

School Name: Courtenay Elementary School

School District: SD#71 Comox Valley

Inquiry Team Members: Heidi Jungwirth: heidi.jungwirth@sd71.bc.ca, Alison Walkley: alison.walkley@sd71.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Email: heidi.jungwirth@sd71.bc.ca

II. Inquiry Project Information

Type of Inquiry: Numeracy & Literacy Project

Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7)

Curricular Areas Addressed: Mathematics / Numeracy

Focus Addressed: Differentiated instruction, Experiential learning, First Peoples Principles of Learning, Formative assessment, Growth mindset, Inclusion and inclusive instructional strategies, Land, Nature or Place-based learning

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? To develop and implement math routines which help students to acquire the skills for mathematics and to develop a mindset of growth, inquiry, and collaboration.

III. Spirals of Inquiry Details

Scanning: Our scanning process this year could be described as seasoned. We asked our students the 4 questions, but after 3 years of ongoing inquiry, we know that they are engaged in their learning.  We know that they understand what they are learning and they think about next steps.  There is a strong community bond and students feel supported and cared for.  3 completed years of inquiry means that the starting line has been moved ahead.

Building on what we have learned in the past, we know the importance of embedding the First People’s Principles of Learning and the OECD Principles of Learning in our teaching practice, including the scanning process.  One extension of our practice that we intentionally focused on this year was including families.

We had already included families by making class books, but at the intermediate level, we wanted the process to become more active, and therefore designed a way for students to have conversations with their families about math topics.  We had a hunch that math anxiety (which is where this inquiry began) also existed at home, passed on from generation to generation.  This meant that truly changing a student’s mindset about math must also provide the opportunity to change the parents’ mindset.  One way to do this was to create a place for conversations.

Focus: A 3 year ongoing inquiry covers a lot of ground, and it is easy to repeat the things said in years past. Rather than repeat myself, I am going to encourage those who are curious about our first 2 years of inquiry to instead read those previous years’ writeups.

2022/2023: https://noiie.ca/courtenay-elementary-school-sd71-comox-valley-4/

2021/2022: https://noiie.ca/courtenay-elementary-school-sd71-comox-valley-3/

Our word for this year is “mathematicianship”.  It may be that this word has just now come into existence, but read on. Mathematicianship is the mindset of thinking of oneself as a mathematician, combined with a solid knowledge of the skills necessary to do mathematics and the desire to inquire and collaborate with other mathematicians.

In both classes we nurtured mathematicianship in our students by using number talks, daily formative conversations about number sense, hands-on learning, and in-depth experiential mathematics inquiries.

Hunch: After year 1 of our inquiry, our hunch was that the lack of number sense was causing students to have anxiety about math.  After 3 years of working intensely with students of diverse abilities and background knowledge, I believe we can say with some authority that our hunch was correct.  In all cases, sometimes with students making almost radical gains, students who achieve a solid sense of number make remarkable progress in mathematics.

We have already written about how math anxiety disappeared in our students (year 1). We have also written about how our students grew to love math class (year 1 and 2).  In year 3, I can add that students exhibit increasing mastery of mathematicianship, which means that they are working joyfully on their math booklets, working collaboratively on their inquiry projects, and are no longer afraid or frustrated when they make mistakes.

If you look at either of our classes (Alison gr 1/2, Heidi gr 4/5) you will see students who are excited about learning math.  There is a certain energy in the room that is unmistakeable: there is intense learning going on.

New Professional Learning: We have spent a large portion of our NOIIE budget on professional books!  The authors we have been referencing for the first 2 years (Boler, Van de Waal) are still relevant and insightful.  There is a new series of books “Figuring out Fluency in Mathematics”, by Jennifer M Bay-Williams and John J.SanGiovanni which we have begun reading and are on the summer reading list.

The program “First Steps in Mathematics” continues to be a valuable resource and the Snap Assessment is an ongoing source of knowledge for us as well.

These resources have supported our professional development.  They have provided us not only with knowledge, but also confidence to take the next steps when we realized what was missing in our school.

Taking Action: This is perhaps the most exciting development from our inquiry.  Alison and I propose a completely new way of teaching mathematics.  We have developed our own pedagogy and written the first series of booklets for the students to use.

In short, we have created a pedagogy of a daily (20 min) practice focused on number sense in its various forms.  Students complete one page (and always only one page) in a leveled booklet and when they are finished, they have a short formative conversation with the teacher.  These conversations are based on the curricular competencies (which are a key component of mathematicianship) and support a growth mindset.

In addition to this foundational 20 minutes of Number Sense work, students develop their mathematicianship through number talks, family math conversations, pedagogical documentation, hands-on learning, and experiential math activities.

It would take a lot of room to explain everything that is happening in our math classes, therefore I encourage you to watch the video we made for the 2024 NOIIE conference.  This video explains in more detail the steps we have taken to improve math instruction in our classrooms.

Link to video: https://vimeo.com/934696997?share=copy 

Checking: When I try to summarize the difference that this inquiry has made for our learners, the change we have seen doesn’t quite seem possible.  Each child that we have taught is now a stronger math student than before.

When I say that each student is stronger than before, I am not only talking about the traditional math skills that they would be expected to learn.  I am talking about their mathmaticianship.  Students are excited about learning math and look forward to our time each day.  Students are engaged and feel “smart”.  They work collaboratively, they are curious, there is a different energy in the room.

The pedagogy of teaching math has spread to other classes in our school and is also spreading to other schools in our district.   We have had positive feedback from all the teachers who have worked with us this year.  We are excited and grateful that this inquiry has led us to this new place where all of our students are enthusiastic about learning math.

Reflections/Advice: This inquiry has been an unbelievably positive experience for Alison and myself, but we should be clear that there has been a lot of uncertainty and hard work to get to this point.  We have had to go way beyond our comfort zone, especially when other teachers asked us to share the materials that we have developed.  I think it is important to say that even when an inquiry is successful, it takes a great deal of courage to travel the path you are on.

We are currently in the process of creating a series of student materials that we plan to make available to other teachers.  These materials are the ones that we have been using in our classes and include instructions on how to teach them using formative feedback as a pedagogy.

The advice we would like to give other teachers, no matter the area of inquiry, is to trust your hunches and use them as a starting point to launch your inquiry.  If things aren’t working in your class, seek out answers.  Find colleagues who have similar questions.  Read the research and don’t be afraid to try new things.  Remember that you can’t change everything at once, so be patient with yourself.  Try to figure out which changes will have the biggest impact and start there.  Perhaps, most importantly, it is important to expect that this journey will be challenging, so lean into that challenge.

We have now completed year 3 of our inquiry and are busy planning for year 4.  Meaningful change takes time.  Take moments to reflect on how far you have come and use them to also plan your next steps.  In the end, we think that inquiry is one of the most powerful tools in education and encourage you to embrace it in your own practice.