Week 26 - Reflect on your inquiry (Take Action)

This weeks reflection on my teaching practice has shown me that although I frequently reflect with my collaborative teaching partner I rarely put pen to paper and formalize the reflections. Although we talk every day about what is happening with our students, it is only when we are writing up our Teaching as Inquiry notes for our appraisal meetings that we fully engage in research and written reflection.



So for this week's reflections, I will be using Rolfe’s Model of Reflection (Otago Polytechnic, n.d.).




Step 1 - What

During the first week of term I collected baseline data, collated the results, found an area for development and selected my target students. I discovered that multiplication was an area that my target students needed explicit teaching in. So as part of the Take Action phase of the Spiral of Inquiry (Kaser, L. & J. Halbert., 2017) I set up four activities for my groups to rotate around. (Take Action - Teaching Plan)
During each maths session, I collected quantitative data, using tally sheets, to indicate whether students were engaged in the activities.
After only a few sessions it was very clear that the Bee-Bots were not engaging. The target students were opting out of the independent sessions. I need to go back to the Learn phase and double check what it was about robotics that was engaging for students, and then modify my activities to ensure that I captured this in my classroom.

Step 2 - So What

Well, I now have more questions
  1. Is it just the target students who are disengaged or all students?
  2. Are they not engaged in robotics or just the robot activities I have given them. Maybe I pitched the activities at the wrong level.


Either way, I can not continue with these activities. My hunch is that they were not challenging enough - the students may have covered some of them in Year 4. I need a greater cognitive challenge for these students. Currently, I have no evidence as to their current knowledge of multiplication but I would suspect that they have not made any progress in this area yet. So, moving forward, I need to design some new activities to engage the students - I need to address part of my Action Plan and make adjustments to the Take Action phase. I will edit my tally sheets and record engagement of all students, not just the target students.

Step 3 - Now What

One of the challenges of my inquiry is that I am trying to use robotics to make a positive impact on mathematics outcomes, specifically in number knowledge and strategies (multiplication). All of the available research into robotics increasing engagement in mathematics involves mathematical concepts such as position and orientation, or measurement. I have examined sources such as NZMaths and reached out to digital curriculum specialists, as well as my Professional Learning Network (PLN) on Facebook. However, this has only led to one suitable activity. Returning to the Focus and Learn phases of the Spiral of Inquiry I revisited the research.
“They (robots) can be used as a tool to enhance student engagement with mathematics while at the same time addressing content and processes from within the mathematics curriculum.” Attard, 2012
The research all suggests that Bee-Bots will be engaging for my students. I now need to dig deeper and come up with some more interesting activities which will fulfill all my requirements - to be engaging, to use Bee-Bots and to develop students knowledge of multiplication.
At least I still have my growth mindset!
Here are the four new activities to excite and engage my learners.
References
Attard, C. (2012). Teaching with Technology: Exploring the use of robotics to teach mathematics. Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom, v17 n2 p31-32

Kaser, L. & J. Halbert. (2017). The Spiral Playbook: Leading with an inquiring mindset in school systems and schools. C21 Canada. Retrieved from http://c21canada.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Spiral-Playbook.pdf

Otago Polytechnic. (n.d.). Reflective Writing. Retrieved from https://www.op.ac.nz/assets/LearningAdvice/Reflective-writing.pdf

The Growth Mindset - What is Growth Mindset - Mindset Works. (n.d.). Retrieved February 23, 2019, from https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/

Zeichner, K. M. and Liston, D. P. (1996) Reflective Teaching: An Introduction. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

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