Assignment 2 – Numeracy : Maths Trail at the Beach



Numeracy: Assignment 2 –Maths Trail at the Beach.

Amy Eatts – smit0539

Section 1

Collaborative group work in primary school classrooms is very important. I think it should play a large part in the teaching of mathematics. I believe that a concept can be taught and then demonstrated and used in a collaborative classroom. “Good-quality teaching of numeracy involves a very skilful blend of explicit teaching, student-centred activity, enquiry, discovery, discussion, relevant practice and meaningful application.” (Westwood, 2000) This quote from Westwood is demonstrating what I’d like to practice in my classroom. This is demonstrated well in our numeracy workshops. Our workshop classroom is set out in a way that allows groups of students to discuss concepts and also use learning tools such as blocks, calculators and rulers. I would like collaborative learning to be a part of my classroom on a regular basis and have the classroom set up with desks like our workshops and my current school placement classroom. This allows collaborative learning to be used across the curriculum. Julie Clark pointed out in our numeracy lecture on Concepts and Procedures that it is important not to assign independent practice unless the students understand how to perform concepts confidently. I would make sure the students understood the activities and concepts well before letting them ‘go it alone’.

Materials that I’d like to use in my classroom for collaborative learning would include blocks (hundreds, tens and units), coloured shapes, rulers, coins, dice, cardboard clocks, large number charts, days of the week and months of the year charts, shape charts will hang on the walls in my classroom. After being introduced to the smart board this year I think this incredible tool could be used in mathematic lessons everyday. It has programs for all different ages and abilities and can be used to introduce that explicit teaching part of the lesson. The children can also use the mathematic programs on class computers and the smart board in collaborative groups. Another way to make maths fun and enjoyable in collaborative groups and to encourage students to want to learn is doing Math Trails within the school grounds using a sports field, playground, a garden or school canteen.

Van De Walle, 2007 also has many ideas that can be used to encourage collaborative learning. One idea that I think would work well is to give each table in my class a problem that uses the skills previously learnt that can be solved together collaboratively. For this type of lesson learning aids and materials don’t always need to be used. The students can work on a problem based question together. For example “You are going to the shop with $4.65. Work out what you can buy given the following list of items. Also work out the change you would have left over.” Each group in the classroom can have a similar or the same problem to work through and problems can be adapted to be age and ability specific.

Section 3

3 Children attempted our Maths Trail. All 3 girls where aged 6 years old. (names have been changed to protect their identities)

Abby – Likes maths and enjoys adding up and recording things. She is a bit reluctant about sharing her experiences.

Sarah – Likes maths and enjoys shapes, numbers and reading and she shows great enthusiasm.

Libby – Likes maths and enjoys cooking, adding and subtracting (she said adding up and taking away). She believes a mathematician is someone that is really good at maths and is a professional.

Abby and Sarah are twin sisters. I noticed that Abby is more outgoing than Sarah and Sarah was initially happy to let her sister read the questions and lead the collaborative group. But after a couple of stations Sarah wanted to read the questions too and put equal input into the discussion.

Station 1 – The White Dove Restaurant.

In this activity the children all had input in what shapes they could see like squares, rectangles, triangles and Libby pointed out she could see ½ a circle in the way the curved stairs were made. Sarah proudly noted it’s called a semi-circle. They all counted the doors in unison but got to 6 and agreed then found another door and then agreed there were 7. The children found many of the same shapes we had using the same technique of calling shapes out as they each saw them. We found more shapes as you would expect as you learn and can recognise more shapes as you get older. Both our groups and the children used the same strategies for looking for shapes and counting doors. Everyone yelled/stated when they found a new type of shape and often the others asked ‘where?’ Amanda wrote down the answers for our group and for the children’s group for all the stations.

Station 2 – Port Noarlunga Reef Map.

Both groups counted the fish and birds on the map together. We found 14 fish and 13 birds which we counted in unison as the children did. We new where the information about the length of the reef was because we made the question up but the students found it after slight direction from us. The children counted 13 fish and 9 birds although the map was hard to see from the height of the 6 year olds. They also knew that ‘km’ stood for kilometres and ‘m’ stood for metres, which surprised us given there age group.

Station 3 – Buckets and Spades.

This station was an interesting one. We set it up to see if they would figure out that they could either add the buckets up or continue on counting and expected them to tip the buckets out and start all over again. We worked collaboratively and Amanda counted whilst Candice and I took in turns scooping sand into the bucket. We then added the buckets up in our heads to get our final answer of 30 scoops. Whilst we got different results from the children this was because we scooped large full scoops and the children did half scoops. With the first question Sarah and Abby scooped and Libby counted 45 scoops. The all agreed that the red bucket was the smallest and took in turns scooping to get 5 scoops. They then added those 2 buckets to give a total of 50 scoops in both and scooped 6 scoops into the medium bucket to get a total of 56 which Sarah and Libby came up with.

Station 4 – Shells.

With this question there was quite a difference in our collaborative result compared with the childrens. We were a bit more specific to our groups based on size and type whilst the children went more for type. We came up with 7 different groups such as 3 fan shells, 3 flat pink shells, 3 large snail like shells, 13 cockle shells, 4 small spirals shells , 6 white hole shells, 6 large spiral shells. The children came up with 4 groups such as 13 cockle shells, 6 flat shells, 4 large snail type shells and 15 spiral shells (small and large combined). Each took in turns counting their 4 groups.

Stations 5 – Stairs.

The stairs got some interesting results as well. Our groups sent 1 or 2 up the stairs and all counted together. The children went up the stairs all at the same time and counted in unison on the way up. Both our group and the children got 13 steps for the first question. The second question asked if you went up this lot of stairs 2 at a time how many steps would you take. In our group Candice and I went up the stairs 2 at a time and counted separately and both ended up with 13 foot steps. The children by this stage were pretty confident with the questions and went up the stairs together but counted in multiples of 2. This gave them an answer of 24 although they got slightly confused half way up and had a little discussion about where they were up to and really they would’ve counted 26 steps. We then clarified the question and this still confused them. This question might have to be demonstrated or reworded in future trails. Part 3 of this question we found both groups used the same strategies by stepping and counting at the same time and estimating the next lot of stairs to be about the same as the first lot.

Station 6 – Signs.

This station was very enjoyable. We found 39 signs collaboratively whilst the children only found 8 but that is understandable as we walked around further and spotted small signs on shop windows and little construction signs with license numbers on them and there were quite a few of these small signs which we counted in our total. The children surprised us and found numbers that we had not seen like number plates of cars driving past a small number on the side of a rubbish bin. Both our groups and the children work very collaborative finding signs and pointing out to the others where they were located. Both our group and the children agreed that the largest number was a phone number 83841800. The children also surprised us by choosing that one as the largest out of a number of phone numbers noting that the 4 as the fourth digit was greater than a phone number with 2 as the forth digit.

We created the Maths Trail for a fun and collaborative way to do maths. We first read a book to the children that had counting and a beach theme which they really enjoyed. The children loved being outside and tried very hard to get the correct answers. A few questions were challenging and some questions surprised us at the answers they gave us. I believe Math Trails is an excellent way for children to enjoy maths, learn in a different environment and introduce or reinforce to them the fact that mathematics is everywhere and will be used in my future classrooms.

References:

Clark, J., EDUC2301, (2009) Primary Literacy and Numeracy in Inclusive Classrooms. Lectures and Workshops. Flinders University of South Australia.

Van De Walle, J.A., (2007) Elementary and Middle School Mathematics, 6th Edition. Allyn and Bacon.

Westwood, P.S., (2000) Improving Numeracy: General teaching principles and practices, Australian Council for Educational Research

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