Welcome back to what is already turning out to be a fun filled year of learning at our school. Our students and our teachers have quickly settled in and begun their lessons. As I wander through the classrooms I can see and hear students engaged in explicit lessons throughout all learning areas.
At St Joseph’s we are fortunate to have iPads and laptops for all students. This week you will have received a copy of our ICT policies to review and discuss with your children. Please ensure you return these notes as soon as possible so that your child can begin to take their device home to use for homework. At St Joseph’s we ask that our devices are only used for educational tasks set by the classroom teacher.
Working mathematically
You may have heard teachers talk about getting their students to work mathematically. So, what is working mathematically?
Working mathematically is integral to the learning process in mathematics. It provides students with the opportunity to engage in genuine mathematical activities and develop the skills to become flexible, critical and creative users of mathematics.
Working mathematically encompasses five interrelated components.
Communicating– we want our students to develop the ability to use a variety of representations, in written, oral or graphical forms to be able to formulate ideas and explain their thinking.
Problem Solving– through problem solving develop the ability to make choices, interpret, model, and investigate problems.
Reasoning– as part of reasoning students develop an increasingly sophisticated capacity for logical thoughts and actions by being able to prove and justify their thinking.
Understanding– when students understand they are able to adapt and transfer mathematical concepts.
Fluency– a fluent student can carry out procedure flexibly, efficiently and accurately.
In our classrooms we use variety of number talks as one way to develop these five components. A number talk is a short whole class maths activity where students find the answer to problems in their heads, then share aloud the strategies they used to find the answers. Sometimes, we give students the problem and ask them to represent their thinking visually.