Tuakana Teina (Term 3)

Today we had Tuakana Teina and spent a lot of time with Sue Pine, the maths PD facilitator. 

We first discussed how we form OTJ's. 

I created this DLO to illustrate our discussion about the types of data, its purpose and how each type of data should be apart of the OTJ.

Sue discussed with us how we shouldn't be focusing on rote-learning basic facts, and how we should be teaching multiplication facts through contextual learning, otherwise students won't/can't use the facts when they really need to solve a problem.

With arrays, we are actually teaching multiplication basic facts but within contexts of splitting up numbers. Sue's example was 12x9, but splitting into 10 and 2 x 9, then 10 and 2 x 4 and 5, and discussing how splitting 4 and 5 is 9, so its the same.

Her example was this - she asked us to memorise this and then she will test us tomorrow. Asking students to memorise stuff without understanding why or showing them how to use it in a mathematical context is not helpful. 

We then talked about OTJ's, and this is how Sue explained how we should best form our OTJ's. Using the national standards, we 'mark' where the student is working at, for each of the different categories. She overall OTJ should be where the student is MOSTLY working - so this student is mostly working in 'at stage 6, end of year 6' so she will be at the national standard. 

Sue also gave us this document, which shows different ways arrays can be used to teach different strategies.