Maths Observation- Dinah

I observed Dinah with a group of stage six students and some stage seven students.
Dinah's focus was on giving students number problems in non-number contexts. Students should be able to apply the strategies they have been taught into problems which do not specify what they need to solve.

The stage six problem:

The majority of students struggled with this problem because of the way it was presented to them. All they had to do in order to solve it was 144 divided by 8- which had they known, all students could've easily done.

The stage seven problem:

The students ability to solve this problem was similar to that of the stage six one- they couldn't apply it due to the wordy problem where an equation is spelt out for them.

Once the students shared their answers (without the shame of getting it wrong, or the pressure of it being marked) Dinah used equipment so the students could replicate the problem they were given. For stage six, it involved making the triangle out of a rectangular piece of paper, and for the sevens, it was constructing three different coloured squares (to scale) out of popsticks.

By giving them the equipment (even if they didn't even really need it) the students were able to get a visual image for the particular problem which will mean that next time they can associate that image with a similar problem.

Dinah maintains that when we rate students at a strategy stage then they should be able to apply the specific strategies in a range of problems, and it makes sense. How often in life are we asked to solve a direct equation? Instead we have to problem solve, to come up with an equation ourselves based on the information we have.

What does this mean for my practice?

It is clear that while I rate students at a stage where they can confidently use particular strategies, they are not necessarily able to apply the strategies. This was evident in my stage eight studnets who were unable to answer the stage seven problem.

I am going to aim to implement this way of thinking into my maths problem. This will involve providing my students with a rich questions which seem like they are targeting a strand, but are actually addressing number strategies. An idea is maybe to have a problem of the day, everyday, in which they are solving a number problem in a non-number context.