2021 Teacher Inquiry

My 2021 Teacher Inquiry at Panmure Bridge School

Blog Post 1

This year for my Teacher Inquiry the question that I have chosen to investigate is: 

Will a focus on oral language in maths accelerate student confidence and capability to use spoken and written maths vocabulary?

Developing a hunch: during Term 1 and 2 Maths testing and classroom teaching I noticed a pattern with the majority of my 25 students. When answering questions most students did not display confidence with new or learned math terms. this hindered their ability to explain their answers, despite sometimes having confidence with their answers. To see whether my approach for my Teaching Inquiry will be effective and accelerate student learning I will monitor a target group of 6 students who are tracking below their peers for their expected year level.

Here are the data for Time Point 1 for my 6 'Target' students below:

I am hoping that by explicitly modelling maths vocabulary and focussing on student voice and student baseline understanding of math concepts that this will accelerate my target students' progress. 

I also want to see an acceleration of my target students' understanding of number strategy.

Here is my Casual Chain Strategy that I will use over the term of my inquiry:

LINK - a large copy

I will be introducing vocabulary terms to my class each week and then reinforce them in my small groups. These terms will be known as focus words. We will attempt to learn this word in a variety of ways, particularly with student-led talk. Going over new words will be particularly important for my target students some of whom are ESOL students.

Developing my wall displays will be something I will do more of as well.