School Name: RC MacDonald Elementary School

School District: SD#43 Coquitlam

Inquiry Team Members: Theresa Roberts troberts@sd43.bc.ca
Kelli Johnson kjohnson@sd43.bc.ca
John Fitzgerald jfitzgerald@sd43.bc.ca
Leona Huggins lhugg@gmail.com (retired!)

Inquiry Team Contact Email: troberts@sd43.bc.ca

II. Inquiry Project Information

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE

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

Curricular Areas Addressed: Mathematics / Numeracy

Focus Addressed: Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving)

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? How do we support the building of a common language across the grades that will help students’ development as mathematicians?

III. Spirals of Inquiry Details

Scanning: Students were interviewed using the NOIIE survey questions in October, and then again in April. We changed one of the questions slightly to reflect our curiosity about Numeracy: “What are you learning about in Math?” The students chosen to complete the survey were, as much as possible, “from the edges”. The NOIIE survey questions align with the ideas in Shane Safir’s book on collecting what she refers to as thick data or street data. https://shanesafir.com/street-data

Staff discussed the data collected at the November and May staff meetings. We found it to be personal and authentic in guiding our work and validating our hunches about how students were doing, but also providing a hard lens on what is not yet working for our students.

In the fall, we discovered that many of our students were not aware that they were learning Math. The early primary students could tell us about counting, but if we asked them about math they had no response. The students in grades 3-5 had a limited understanding of what math might entail. The responses did support our hunch that our students are struggling with language of numeracy, perseverance and problem solving.

In spring, the survey responses showed growth in students’ overall understanding about what they might be learning in Math and how they felt their learning was going. Their relationships with the staff had also increased and they were feeling more positive about their school experiences.

Focus: Our data from the NOIIE survey combined with classroom based assessments, FSA results, the Student Satisfaction Survey and report cards, demonstrated that we needed to work on improving student confidence and understanding of numeracy topics across grades K-5.

Hunch: We discovered that staff were making assumptions about where students should be at based on their grade level, and were sometimes frustrated that students did not yet seem ready. We examined our assumptions about the curriculum and our teaching practices, and found that we needed to be more intentional with our students and give more chances for them to access prior learning in different ways. We are still learning that we can do this by finding times to engage students in hands-on problem solving activities, discussions, and games. We are still finding a balance between traditional instructional methods and these types of classroom activities.

New Professional Learning:

• Team Leaders participated in meetings, learning and discussing the Spirals of Inquiry book with  the Principal.
• Two Team Leaders took on the role of Numeracy Lead for the school and attended the after school sessions provided by SD43 Learning Services.
• One of the Numeracy Leads also attended the BC Mathematics Conference in October and then shared the book: Hands Down, Speak Out: Listening and Talking Across Literacy and Math. We purchased multiple copies of this book for Staff.
• BC Reggio-Inspired Mathematics Project Newsletter was shared to Staff at each publication.
• SD43 Learning Services Numeracy site continued to evolve for use by all Staff.

Taking Action: In November we all completed a math collection task (every class and their teachers) that we obtained from SD43 Learning Services, and then discussed at a staff meeting. Teachers made time outside of their math blocks to do so, and it was an important step to all try the same task and then discuss together.

At every Staff Meeting the Numeracy Leads shared a math game, or other activity, which we actively participated in as though we were students.

In December, three teachers shared how they had begun engaging students in talking about their learning using strategies from the book Hands Down, Speak Out: Listening and Talking Across Literacy and Math.

From January-June, Number of the Week became an opportunity for students to post number sentences on the bulletin board display across from the washrooms. It highlighted student voice and creativity.

        
Image Description: Examples of students posting number sentences on our number wall.

In March, four teachers worked with our School District Numeracy Coordinator, Jen Whiffen, in person at the school with their students on a problem solving activities.

Checking: In June 2022, teachers were surveyed about next steps for teaching numeracy. Their ideas about numeracy and their teaching have become much more confident and direct compared to June 2021. They have increased their ideas about how they can help their students increase numeracy skills, and they know what practical steps and activities they can try to incorporate in the future.

Student responses to the NOIIE survey were more detailed, upbeat and confident for all the questions, but especially with math. They had concrete explanations about what they are learning and what they hope to learn next.

Student responses (only grade 4’s participated) to the Satisfaction Survey clearly show that the one area they need help with is MATH. We were able to take that data and convert it to a Wordle form to discuss at the school planning session.

The results are no surprise to the staff. This was only the beginning, our first year of working together with a focus on Numeracy, so we anticipate more work is needed for the 22-23 school year and beyond.

Reflections/Advice:

• Engage with an expert when possible – it increased teacher confidence.
• Choose something simple to try – try it multiple times and discuss with colleagues as you do, to reimagine and tweak your work.
• Have fun with students and each other; numeracy does not always have to be serious! Engage and connect in meaningful ways in real time with current events.

School Name: Baker Drive Elementary

School District: SD#43 Coquitlam

Inquiry Team Members: Denean Lederer: dlederer@sd43.bc.ca
Sue Sabourin:ssabourin@sd43.bc.ca
Kelsey Keller: kkeller@sd43.bc.ca
Kelly Kolbe: kkolbe@sd43.bc.ca
Lindsay Ward: lward@sd43.bc.ca
Karen Capel; kcapel@sd43.bc.ca
Sandi David: sdavid@sd43.bc.ca
Ryan Hoben: rhoben@sd43.bc.ca
Christine Dos Santos: cdossantos@sd43.bc.ca
Dave King: dking@sd43.bc.ca
Mary-Anne Guevarra: mguevarra@sd43.bc.ca
Mariah Ciaburri: mciaburri@sd43.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Name/Email: Jill Reid/jreid@sd43.bc.ca

II. Inquiry Project Information

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE

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

Curricular Areas Addressed: Language Arts – Oral Language, Mathematics / Numeracy

Focus Addressed: Indigenous understandings (for example, Traditional Knowledge, oral history, reconciliation), Experiential learning, First Peoples Principles of Learning, Formative assessment, Indigenous pedagogy, Land, Nature or Place-based learning

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Our learners as our teachers – applying principles of formative assessment to our learning organization.

III. Spirals of Inquiry Details

Scanning: When scanning in the fall, the four key questions were embedded within direct teaching as well as within conferencing/story gathering processes with our learners to gain greater insight into their perception of the learning goals and their learning.

Teachers took different approaches to gathering student voice in relation to our areas of focus (Numeracy, Indigenous Teaching/FPPoL), explicitly teaching to the learning intentions and THEN having students talk about what they are learning in relation to this — where are they now and what next.

Concretely in Numeracy, we started with a fall performance assessment; even though we are three years into evolving our practice with District mentorship/school staff leadership and have a plan – still – communicating Mathematical thinking and using a variety of strategies showed to be weak in new situations. FSA results and classroom assessments also showed that applying thinking in novel situations needed more focus.

For our focus on Indigenous teachers and also FPPoL, our scanning showed us great interest and engagement from our learners when observing learning contexts. Our collected evidence though – particularly from older learners – indicated that internalizing the learning and being able to identify and connect the learning experiences together (consolidating) wasn’t necessarily present.

Focus: Our school goals all include the strategy of EXPLICITLY stating the learning intentions from our learning organization to our learners – having them internalized – what we are learning, why it matters and how we are doing – for adults and students. Analysis of Data: Products, conversations, and student perspectives from report cards lead us to wonder if our learners understand what our learning goals for them as our school community are, why they matter, where we are right now and where we are trying to go; our learners finding their place and meaning in their learning.

Hunch: Analysis of Data: Products, conversations, student perspectives from report cards, and FSA information lead us to wonder if learners can explicitly articulate the key/consistent learning intentions for them as individual learners. So much time, effort, and energy is being invested in innovative instructional design, to make it interactive, experiential and fun – in key focus areas. For our learners, we need more of their feedback to inform our instruction – more information to ensure THEY can tell us what they are learning and why it is important (which most are able to do), as well as where they are at as an individual learner and where they are going next (this is less consistent). Our hunch is that this inconsistency leads to learners not being able to identify these learning experiences when reflecting and also not being able to apply this learning in novel or unfamiliar situations.

New Professional Learning: Teachers worked with the District Numeracy Coordinator to pilot a fall and spring performance-based assessment to further develop their knowledge of the critical phases for numeracy development in young children (Kathy Richardson), as well as to apply these phases to their planning and observation of student learning.

Both our District Coordinator and Learning Support Teacher were invaluable resources and support.

Indigenous Teachings and FPPoL were a focus throughout the year, led by knowledgeable and passionate staff both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. All staff were gifted Grandmother Circle teachings led by a local elder. Professional development had a very intentional focus on learning from our land and honouring our local Kwikwetlem Nation – we were gifted a nation flag and learned the cleansing ceremony. Staff participated in collaborative mid-year professional development, where they shared practices with one another that embed FPPoL. Two teachers learning hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ have been gifted the language learning to share with us and our learners. We also explored the topic of residential schools more in-depth to increase our knowledge of the impacts.

What has been the most helpful is our passionate colleague teacher leaders who share their knowledge, leadership and collaborative open thinking with us. We have also continued to work with our District Indigenous Education Support Teacher and Department.

Taking Action:
Strategy 1) Determining an evidence-based foundation that focuses on professional conversation (Kathy Richardson’s Numeracy work – critical phases for children’s development of mathematical thinking), then use student voice/evidence/stories in relation to this foundation (it’s not a program, but rather relevant research-based descriptors of student learning and development; it didn’t limit instructional approaches).

We used this foundation to collect student learning and frame conversations with our learners that could inform school-wide practice. In our case, particularly multiplicative thinking forms the foundation for our shared conversation about how our learners are doing in relation to research-based indicators of developmental mathematical thinking. As a staff it helps us differentiate: extending or providing targeted and intensive support inclusively for the very few to leap frog as needed.

Strategy 2) Using a clear school-wide data collection process – pre-, during-, and post-approach – across the school to create more opportunity for collaborative conversations beyond individual classrooms, that was inclusive of student voice and teachers observations of products, processes/strategies and conferences/stories.

Strategy 3) Working closely with outside voices – in particular, our District Coordinators and Learning Support Teachers – to inform our practice and ensure we are innovating based on research, to increase our knowledge and efficiency of teaching and learning, to ensure we don’t become introverted and only see our learners within the context of our small community, and to connect us with other school communities to learn from one another.

Photo description (above): Images from Baker Drive Elementary’s inquiry project

Checking: Individual conferences and student perspectives indicate we are making progress towards our learners being able to articulate what they are learning, why it is important and what our learning organizations’ learning intentions are (never words they would use). We have seen an increase in both the number of students able to identify adults who care about them and believe they will be a success, and also an increase in the number of adults each learner is able to identify.

Evidence collected via conference/story and the student learning survey indicates an increase in the number of students recognizing they participate in Indigenous teachings and learning experiences often (daily or weekly) and that it’s important – what they are learning and why it matters.

Reflections/Advice: There is still work to be done in having students see the adult community as a whole to be caring and supportive of them – a hunch is that they see this as their current and past teacher’s job, however it is not as often that support staff are named. One student even remarked that it wasn’t the principal’s job to care about students – though there are students that identify support staff and outside class staff as caring and supportive. Our focus will be on every learner being able to do this and expanding the cultural belief that adults in our community care and are supportive of each learners’ success.

Our hunch is that for our learners to move beyond “the what and why” of Indigenous Teachings and FPPoL to their individual learning journeys and growth, is our likely next step. How can we do this in a manner that maintains the “whole” while learning and internalizing the “parts” — Focusing on the learners more, or the teaching less, to inform our practice? Zooming in and out? Our next steps are not clear…

Our suggestions for others interested in similar topics:
1.) Determine a foundation to focus shared/collaborative professional conversations that are more often about ways of professional thinking rather than approaches/how to teach – a foundation that describes the learning and involves learners.
2.) Leverage organizational time and staff structures that already exist as much as possible (i.e. staff meetings, PD Days, school leader/facilitator positions, student conferences, early dismissals, etc.), particularly colleague leadership.
3.) Access outside voices – particularly teacher colleagues – as partners.

School District: SD#43 Coquitlam

Inquiry Team Members: Denean Lederer:dlederer@sd43.bc.ca, Lindsay Ward:lward@sd43.bc.ca, Christine Dos Santos: cdossantos@sd43.bc.ca, Mary-Anne Guevarra: mguevarra@sd43.bc.ca, Rory Campbell: rocampbell@sd43.bc.ca, Sarah Lowther: slowther@sd43.bc.ca, Dave King: dking@sd43.bc.ca, Kelsey Keller: kkeller@sd43.bc.ca, Lindsay Tonogai: ltonogai@sd43.bc.ca, Karen Capel: kcapel@sd43.bc.ca, Sandi David: sdavid@sd43.bc.ca, Jennifer Whiffin: jwhiffin@sd43.bc.ca

Inquiry Team Contact Email: jreid@sd43.bc.ca

Type of Inquiry: NOIIE

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

Curricular Area(s): Mathematics / Numeracy

Focus Addressed: Differentiated instruction, Experiential learning, Flexible learning, Formative assessment, Inclusion and inclusive instructional strategies

In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Explicitly exposing students to mathematical thinking strategies, in order to increase mathematical comprehension and fluency for problem solving.

Scanning: It appeared that students were learning the initial developmental steps in the pathway to multiplicative thinking in a fairly focused and consistent manner across classes – particularly K-early grade 2 – counting, 1:1 correspondence, representing numbers in different ways, skip counting, group numbers, etc. As our inquiry gained focus on the Critical Learning Phases for Multiplicative Thinking (Jen Whiffin – based upon the work of Kathy Richardson), evidence of learning became apparent in many areas of the OECD and FPPL Principles due to the experiential hands-on, collaborative nature and focus on place-based learning. It appeared in the student perspective and core competency reflections, that students generally held a positive mind-set towards numeracy/mathematics and parents reported in surveys that they felt their children were learning as they should. These OECD and FPPL Principles were not as readily evidenced in the absence of the Critical Phases frame.

Focus: 2020-2021 is the second year for this goal AND there was a change in principal. Rationale for the selection for 2019-2020, was that teacher professional judgment of student learning collected from report cards and combined with FSA results (with high participation rates prior to the pandemic), along with implementing the revised curriculum focus on the “Big Ideas” of the K-5 Mathematics curriculum, led to this focus. Report card data indicated anywhere from 15-20% of learners were lagging in their ability to demonstrate their mathematical thinking – particularly in performance based tasks Grades 2-5. Our goal is for ALL learners to develop strong number sense and ultimately be able to apply their learning independently to solve problems that require numeracy.

Hunch: The hunch was that numeracy instruction was highly personalized to individual teachers, classrooms, resources, training and interest, and this lack of shared understanding of how multiplicative thinking develops in young learners was leading to inconsistent student learning both within and across classes.

New Professional Learning:
– 2019-2020 (began)/2020-2021 (continued) – the work with Numeracy Support Teacher, Jennifer Whiffin, on a voluntary basis
– Demonstration lessons
– Lesson design
– Collaborative and PD time at staff meetings and PD Days
– Teacher prep. time available one day a week, scheduled with a teaching partner
– Critical Pathways to Multiplicative Thinking (Whiffin graphic format based on work of Kathy Richardson)
– Classroom sets of manipulatives purchased by the District/school, reflective of Critical Pathways learning cycles
– Over 2020-2021, Critical Pathways Graphic became increasingly overt
– Piloted new resources of lesson cycles designed by the NST, based upon the Critical Pathways
– Grades 2-5 teachers given the District resource of Multiplicative Thinking lesson cycles
– Some teachers in Grades 2-5 participated in a virtual series with Carol Saundry – Teaching Through Problem-Solving
– K-5 numeracy resources were purchased based upon problem-solving series for teachers to support this in-service K-5.
– Some teachers had their students participate in various virtual place-based Math activities design by the NST, offered weekly
– Introduced and initial trial piloting Critical Pathways Assessment tools – classroom “review” based upon Critical Phases AND Observable Behaviours Proficiency Scale

Taking Action: During the 2019-2020 school year, staff began to work with Numeracy Support Teacher, Jennifer Whiffin, on a voluntary basis (demonstration lessons and lesson design) until schools closed Spring Break. Late Spring 2020, classroom sets of manipulatives were purchased, by the District, for all teachers based on newly designed lesson cycles created by the NST based upon the Critical Pathways for the Development of Multiplicative Thinking. All grades 2-5 teachers were given the District resource of Multiplicative Thinking lesson cycles, to pilot as appropriate to their learners for 2020-2021. Some teachers in Grades 2-5 participated in a virtual series with Carol Saundry – Teaching Through Problem-Solving. All K-5 numeracy resources were purchased for teachers to support this in-service K-5. The NST worked side-by-side with other teachers. The Critical Pathways document gradually introduced over the year as the overt framework for observing student learning – still in progress – particularly in the Spring Grades 2-5. A number of teachers had their students participate in virtual place-based Math activities designed by the NST. In May, teachers in grades 2-5 piloted a hands-on performance based assessment designed and implemented by the NST, with classroom teachers and Student Services teachers observing and recording in relation to the Critical Pathways in a “class review format.” Teachers k-5 were then provided with a four step developmental proficiency scale to pilot, further capturing observable evidence of learning and teacher professional judgement. Currently we are exploring whether this can easily be captured in an online format to compare easily over time.

Checking: As 2020-2021 is our first cycle through the Spiral, we feel we have established our “baseline” as a result of this year’s work. We have not yet consolidated the framework across all teachers, as we were introduced to so much that was new and have yet to fit it all together. One significant observation is that many, many students K-5 hold a positive disposition towards mathematics. When asked what they are most proud of learning, it is striking how many choose to talk about Math and describe that they are proud because “they didn’t know how to do…but now they do.” When asked what advice they would give a learner in a younger grade or what they are “taking with them” to their next grade, it is to “learn mathematics because it is important to solve problems and they need it in life.” Importantly, these answers came while not specifically being asked about their disposition towards Mathematics, but were spontaneous. When capturing student perspectives, many students could find the vocabulary to describe exactly what they had conceptually learned. Students are keen to use complicated vocabulary such as “subitizing” and “multiplicative” thinking. Younger learners are VERY excited that they are doing what they understand to be “multiplication” – which they see as something “big kids” do. From September until now, teachers have captured video and photo images of their learners on this journey that we were able to share with parents to help them understand what their children are learning to do, and as observable evidence of learning.

Piloting the performance assessment was important for gathering evidence of learning. Initial scanning of this data indicates that a number of learners reverted to the earlier developmental stages of multiplicative thinking – neither the most efficient nor the most elegant – even if more sophisticated strategies had been previously demonstrated in a weekly task. These observations will inform next year’s inquiry.  Teachers also noted that since we have the assessment tools, we need to use them in the Fall to set our baseline for annual learning and inform instruction for individual students and classes.

Reflections/Advice: What we learned is that we needed, and now have, a focus and framework for our mindset around developing the Big Ideas of numeracy in our learners, and that our outside “expert” – District Numeracy Support Teacher, Jennifer Whiffin – was integral to our success as a learning organization; if not for her, we would still have needed to find a framework (not a program) that resonated with the professional learning community as a shared focus for our learning – with a variety of professional entry points. Her unwavering focus on the latest research and then generating complex instructional designs with clear formative assessment tools, along with graphically representing the Critical Pathways for us to gradually make overt in our community, has given us the anchor and focus we need to be invitational for teachers as continuous learners, as well as our students themselves. The framework also allows teachers to design what suits their approach to teaching, learning and classroom culture, while knowing we are all headed in the same direction in our journey towards a shared goal. It definitely feels like we are “at the beginning,” in a very positive way.