When we were given the opportunity to choose our elective for second year, I instantly knew that “Discovering Mathematics” would be my first choice. I have always enjoyed maths, through both primary and secondary school and I wanted to learn more about it. As comfortable as I am in my ability to do mathematics, I was less comfortable with the thought of teaching it. During my placement, I noticed that I was teaching a lot of mathematic lessons. I introduced new topics and although I knew what to do, I struggle to engage some of the children, particularly the ones who complained that they “couldn’t do maths”.
During our workshop, we learnt that you must have these three things to develop mathematical thinking (Burton, Mason and Stacey, 2008). These areas are competence, understanding concepts and confidence.
This got me thinking about my placement class. During one of my whole class lessons, I was revising co-ordinates with them and then introducing 4th quadrants. It had been a year since the class had learnt about co-ordinates and we knew that not all the children would understand plotting points in all four quadrants due to not having a strong understanding of negative numbers. I looked up different resources and finally decided upon a “Homer Simpson” co-ordinate sheet where the children had to plot the points and then join them up. As I wanted all the children to be able to participate in this activity, I knew that I needed to come up with a way to make it inclusive to all. The children are seated in mixed ability groups so I decided to work with this. The children would complete the worksheet in pairs.
I started the lesson and tried to make it as interactive as possible having children up plotting points and telling me what quadrant it was but I still noticed some of my reluctant learners zoning out. I handed out the worksheet and they quickly got to work. At first, it took a while to get the children engaged but once they realised what was going on they changed. It was rewarding to see the more reluctant so engaged in the activity and the pride that they held when they were able to do it correctly.
Reflecting on the activity, I realised that although some of the children lacked the understanding, they gained it in confidence and with this confidence, it aided their competence and their understanding. I am glad that all the children were able to complete the same worksheet. I never really thought about the affect different worksheets have on children. They realise if they are doing different work to others and it does affect their confidence. By allowing children who struggle more the chance to work with the children who are more confident in maths, it allowed them to feel a sense of achievement.
As a teacher, I will work on ensure that all children in my class are confident in their ability to do mathematics. By allowing children to work together and share their skills and knowledge, it helped both children’s confidence and understanding which helped them as learners.
Reference
Mason, J., Burton, L. and Stacey, K. (2010) Thinking Mathematically (2nd ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.
