School Name: Fairview Community School
School District: SD#68 Nanaimo-Ladysmith
Inquiry Team Members:Jenessa Vanzandwyk: Jenessa.Vanzandwyk@sd68.bc.ca, Holly Shelton: holly.shelton@sd68.bc.ca, Christina Renneberg: christina.renneberg@sd68.bc.ca, Sofia LaBounty: sofia.labounty@sd68.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: sofia.labounty@sd68.bc.ca
Type of Inquiry: NOII (focus on core competencies, OECD learning principles, etc.)
Grade Levels: Primary (K-3)
Curricular Area(s): Mathematics / Numeracy
Focus Addressed: Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving), Differentiated instruction, Flexible learning, Formative assessment, Growth mindset
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Increasing student engagement and competence with numeracy.
Scanning: Our team used the four key questions to interview our students during our scanning process. We reviewed this process and discovered that students responded differently to classroom teachers versus support teacher. Also, the delivery style of the questions offered students a variety of prompting that may have skewed the answers. We agreed to adapt the 4 key questions so that students would be able to clearly understand what is being asked of them and also agreed that classroom teachers should be asking the students these questions as they have an established relationship with the student.
We mainly noticed a lack of confidence with our students in regards to numeracy which is why we felt that this collaboration was very necessary.
As we continue to work through this spiral for the coming school year, we will be looking more closely into the OECD principles and the First Peoples Principles of Learning in the next scanning phase.
Focus: Numeracy is being reviewed as a school and as we work through this inquiry as a whole group, we looked to target in similar grade groupings how teachers can collaboratively embed new instructional strategies and practices to enhance student engagement with numeracy. Our school wide goal is to increase student number sense and confidence when faced with new mathematical concepts.
Hunch: Our school is a focus school in our district as a result of the low socio-economic area it serves. We have very strong literacy focus for our students and we’ve become aware that students are not necessarily participating in mathematical learning on a daily basis. Teachers have recognized the need to review how mathematical concepts are scaffolded from year to year.
New Professional Learning: After attending the provincial conference in Oct. many teachers were inspired with Carole Fullerton’s resources and some teachers participated in an online course with Jo Boaler. Some books explored included: ‘Becoming the Math teacher you wish you’d had’ by Tracy Zager & ‘Number Sense Routines’ by Jessica Shumway
Taking Action: Teachers followed some Carole Fullerton resources
Thinking like a mathematician – math is more than a competency, thinking and developing number sense
Incorporate different teaching strategies – celebrate different thinking/making thinking visible
Checking: Teachers felt that students became more comfortable and capable during numeracy activities. The data showed progress within the K/1, 1 & 1/2 classrooms. Teachers are looking forward to continuing this work as the biggest benefit was the strong collaboration taking place between colleagues in grade like classrooms. c
Reflections/Advice: Reflection: Thinking like a mathematician – math is more than a competency, thinking and developing number sense
Incorporate different teaching strategies – celebrate different thinking/making thinking visible.
We feel that any inquiry process involves a long term commitment. It’s important to establish common practices that are supported by several teachers and to follow up on students as they progress through the grades to see how our inquiry has impacted students learning.