The Context and the Mathematics

The composite Foundation/year 1 class (Green 2) is situated in the early years’ open space unit and consists of 26
students, 3 Foundation year and 23 Year 1 students, with 14 boys and 12 girls. Of the 26 students, there are a range
of cultures with 5 students having English as Additional Language or Dialect (EALD). The diversity of cultures within
the class include Australian, Indian, and Filipino. The school offers additional support in a literacy program (mini lit) to
students who demonstrate challenges in literacy development. The program runs Monday to Thursday between 9-
10am by a Student Support Officer (SSO) and supports a small group of approximately 4 children. This program has
been particularly beneficial for EALD students.

Whilst observing the teacher and the students, reading reports and viewing previous work samples, I have become
aware of the need for students to be arranged at the tables during certain times. Although arranged seating isn’t
permanent as the mentor teacher acknowledges that student choices are valuable, occasionally the students will be
allocated seating around the room. This is often arranged with the students with the greatest needs on one table, and
the remaining students placed in small table groups. These children are mixed with a variety of abilities. This
encourages the greatest learning opportunities as the teacher can assist the students with the highest needs primarily
and then move around the room to assist the other students. Grouping students with a variety of abilities encourages
students to support and learn from each other.

During the unit, strategies were employed to ensure the students engagement and enthusiasm was maintained and
expectations on the students was clear. This included using: pirate loot which was given for making strong choices,
breaking lessons down into steps which supported them to be successful, giving clear instructions and expectations,
giving reminders to redirect behaviour and to listen to instructions, resources and equipment were ready and
organised, checking on the progress of each group to ensure they were on task, working within lesson time restraints,
strategic ignoring of interrupting, giving students opportunities to be creative, making sure that all students have
stopped work and are paying attention before giving further instructions and giving challenges at pack up time (time
challenge, count down/up, magic rubbish piece). Using attention grabbers such as “pineapples” where children stop
what they are doing and place them hands on their heads like pineapple leaves is used when needing to gain the
attention of the entire class before giving further instructions.

The Unit and Lesson Plans

During the placement block a planned unit of mathematics under the strand Measurement & Geometry was
implemented and evaluated. This unit was planned by myself, under the guidance of my mentor teacher to ensure
consistency was provided for the students in Green 2. This was the second unit I had planned for the class and
followed a unit I had planned on time. The mentor teacher removed herself from the group during explicit teaching
time and observed from her desk. She assisted the students with myself (PST) during the activities to support their
learning. I received feedback in post lesson debrief sessions with my mentor teacher. The unit employed Natural
Maths strategies (2006-2007) which influences the mathematical program across the junior school. Natural Maths is
an Australian designed program by Ann and Johnny Baker which challenges and encourage students to work
mathematically with open-ended "real life" situations and construct their own ideas. The school has found the
outcomes of using this program to be very positive for their students and in meeting the curriculum requirements
set by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).

The unit focussed on the area of length and developed student thinking around using direct and indirect
comparisons and uniform informal units of measure to explore length. The students practiced these skills for 10
minutes at the start of each lesson in a mental routine. This involved closed, open and flip questions designed to
engage students and stimulate their enthusiasm and activate their prior knowledge. The students were then given a
problematised situation which challenged and encouraged students to work mathematically in “real life” situations
and construct their own ideas. Mathematical language was used to describe successful strategies used by the
students and more formal methods were introduced and demonstrated. This occurred at the end of the lesson in a
sharing/reflection time and students were asked to summarise the story of the lesson. This method helped students
to develop deeper understandings in collaboration with others. The subsequent lesson on the following day was a
strategy lesson which provided students with specific learning opportunities and intentional teaching which
responded to the skills or strategies identified in the previous lesson. Unfortunately, due to testing which was
happening through out the school (PAT and Bright Start) the unit was condensed to three lessons.

The Assessment
Informative assessments occurred throughout the unit. This was achieved through a few processes. Firstly, by
activating the students’ prior knowledge to gage what they already know. This allowed the planning of the unit to be
specific and extend from what the students already knew. Secondly, by taking samples of the students’ work, both
previous and current, so I could map their progress, and lastly, by taking observations of the students’ learning.
Through these combined strategies I could develop an understanding on their level of knowledge, misconceptions,
style of learning and interests. I observed the students both formally and informally. Having access to the students’
semester 1 reports helped me to build a profile of each of the children.

During the previous time unit which I planned, implemented and evaluated, I used both formative and summative
methods of assessment. This unit went for four lessons with a summative assessment on the fifth day. Following the
summative assessment, I was able to collect data from the children about the assessment, received feedback and
conducted an interview with the mentor teacher (PIP) to help with my evaluations and future planning. From this data
I was able to recognise specific areas for improvement which I implemented in planning the length unit. The teacher
commended the range of strategies which I employed whilst teaching the unit but suggested that I make the following
units slightly ‘more hands on’ and move away from making lots of worksheets to a more ‘student centred approach’.
The mentor teacher appreciated that teaching time can be quite abstract so did see their purpose however, moving
into length gave scope for the children to be hands on and represent their learning in their books with less structure.
The mentor teacher also suggested that a summative assessment may occur at the conclusion of the measurement
units to see how much of the learning the students have retained across the entire strand.

Lesson 1
In this lesson I introduced the topic in the mental routine by placing a collection of objects (three pencils) of different
lengths on the floor. I then used a range of opened, closed and flipped questions to identify which pencil they believed
to be the shortest and longest, explaining their reasoning through everyday language, then asked the children to
physically compare the pencils before placing them in order from shortest to longest. During this time, I used key
vocabulary and summarised the findings.
The children were then given a problematised situation task of finding out how long their desks were. I asked that the
children use one type of object (uniform units) to measure their desk and then record their findings in their books.
The children were given a task card which explained the task and asked to work in pairs with the person who sits next
to them. They were given open use of any of the resources in the room, including the maths equipment.
During the activity I walked around the room to first observe the different strategies being used by the children. Some
of them were using single items (such as a pencil) to measure the table and used different items to mark the measured
length each time the pencil was used to count the number of pencil length across their table. Other children were
using multiple pencils, which created discrepancies in their measurements as each of the pencils were different
lengths. Other children decided to use counters, where the collection of items were uniform and they placed a line of
counters across the table and then placed the total number. During this time, rather than directing the students’
learning, rather I posed some questions which encouraged the children to think deeply about their strategies.
Due to the different levels of abilities with the children, by pairing them together I used theoretical strategies of Zone
of Proximal development (ZPD) and social constructivist theory. An extension task asked the children to record their
findings and then use a different informal uniformed unit of measure to repeat the activity.
At the conclusion of the lesson I gathered the children on the floor and asked them to bring their books. I asked the
children if they would like to share their findings and a number of children accepted. Three children, of varying abilities
came to the front and shared their findings to their peers. This allowed the students to see what others did, deepening
their understanding of the task. During this time, we discussed which methods worked well and which others required
further thinking. I was able to discuss how we can read their recordings and what information was relevant when
recording this.
I collected samples of three focus children’s work. This was used in the planning of the strategy lesson to extend and
correct any misconceptions that the children demonstrated (Appendix 1).

Lesson 2
This lesson started with the mental routine but this time extended slightly further to include a larger collection of
items, where the children were again asked a range of open, closed and flip questions before being asked to place the
collections of items in order from shortest to longest.
This was a strategy lesson where I placed varied lengths of tape across the children desks. I then asked the children,
working in their table groups, to place the tape pieces in order, from shortest to longest, and then use a uniform unit
of measure to measure each of the pieces of tape and then record their findings in their books. Before the children
started the activity I demonstrated some of the ways and objects that they may use for the activity and how they
might record their findings in their books to clearly demonstrate what they found.
During the activity time I was able to work with one of the table groups which demonstrated misconceptions from the
previous lesson. This allowed me to give intentional teaching strategies of how they can be successful in this lesson.
Firstly, I observed the children place the tape in order form shortest to longest. Then together we selected a uniform
unit of measure, which was the MAB tens and unit blocks. I then demonstrated how I placed the MAB blocks along
side of the longest piece of tape, and counted the blocks. I then supported the children in how they can record their
findings in their books.
I was sure to move around to observe what each of the children were doing in their groups. The children were using
rich mathematical language as they worked in their table groups and were supporting each other by sharing ideas and
working out which strategies were the best. At the end of the lesson the students gathered on the carpet to reflect
and share their findings. The children were more confident in sharing and their findings were clearly recorded and
could be interpreted by anyone reading their books (Appendix 2).

Lesson 3
This was a problematised and evaluation lesson. The lesson began with the mental routine where the I placed two
collections of items on the floor (leaves) and asked the children a series of open, closed and flip questions. This time
the children were slightly challenged as the leaves were similar in length and were different widths. The children were
asked to place the leaves in order from shortest to longest. This provided scope for discussion as some of the children
shared different ideas to others.
The task was to work in table groups to order themselves in height, from shortest to longest (tallest) and then use a
form of uniform informal measure to find the shortest and longest (tallest) person on their tables. They were asked to
record their findings in their books. I was able to observe during this lesson the students’ current understandings
against the Australian curriculum and aim of the lesson.
At the end of the lesson we had time to share and reflect our findings and evaluate what we had learnt through the
‘story’ of the lesson. I was able to observe the students’ understanding and the growth of their knowledge from the
first to the final lesson on length.

Justification of and Reflection on the Strategy

The Australian curriculum identifies that students at a Foundation level should be able to use direct and indirect
comparisons to decide which is longer and explain reasoning in everyday language (ACMMG006). I found all student
to successfully demonstrate this ability and to achieve above this achievement standard. The Australian curriculum
identifies that a Year 1 student should demonstrate their ability to measure and compare lengths of objects using
uniform informal units of measure (ACMMG019). I found that the year 1 students demonstrated this ability
successfully and documentation collected justifies this achievement.
I believe that the students will benefit from revisiting length later in the year to identify their concrete knowledge in
the content area. The mentor teacher plans to develop an assessment on Measurement and Geometry in term 4
which will be used to collect information on their end of year reports.

The purpose of this evaluation is to further develop my understandings of how myself and others learn. The
pedagogy of the Teaching for Effective Learning (TFEL) framework identifies that ‘When leaders and teachers are
learners, we enrich and strengthen our professional practice’ (p.9). Learning for effective teaching is an important
element within the framework which occurs as continual process, whereby leaders and teachers develop their
understandings of current learning theories, and themselves as learners, to inform learning and teaching design
(p.14).

I found verbally evaluating my practice and receiving feedback from my mentor teacher in discussion as a very useful
tool in improving my practice and growing my confidence. My mentor teacher gave constructive feedback which
supported me as a PST and helped me with strategies to manage the students, particularly with the differentiation in
abilities.

In the following weeks I revisited the children’s’ work and asked them if they could explain what they did. The children
were able to discuss what they did and used key vocabulary to support their explanations. This demonstrates their
understandings of the content area of measurement of length.

Conclusion and Recommendations

In conclusion, I found this process to be very rewarding in improving my practice and demonstrating the impact
which I had on my students’ learning. I feel that by using a ‘hands on and engaging’ approach, supported by Natural
Maths Strategies (Baker 2006-2007) and by implementing the feedback which I received following my initial maths
unit of time, I was able to experience the entire process of planning, implementing and assessing for learning
successfully.
Reference List

ACARA 2015, Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), F-10 Curriculum, Mathematics,
Foundation to Year 10 Curriculum v7.5, Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, viewed 21 April
2017, < http://v7-5.australiancurriculum.edu.au/mathematics/rationale >.

ACARA 2016, Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), Assessment, Online Assessment,
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, viewed 17 June 2017,
<http://www.acara.edu.au/assessment/online-assessment-research>.

Government of South Australia, Department of Education and Children’s Services 2010, South Australian teaching for
effective learning framework guide: a resource for developing quality teaching and learning in South Australia,
viewed 17 June 2017, < https://www.decd.sa.gov.au/sites/g/files/net691/f/tfel_framework_guide_complete.pdf>.

Baker, A & Baker, J 2006-2007, Natural maths strategies, Blake Education, Leichhardt, N.S.W.
Appendices
Appendix 1 -

Harper: “I used a pencil. It was long.”

Lachlan: “The 12 and a half tells you

how long it is. I used textas, I forgot to
write that.”
Appendix 2 –

Harper: “I put them in order from

smallest to biggest.”

Lachlan: “So I put the tape in order.

This one is the longest. We used small
cubes to measure how long it was. It
was 17.”
Appendix 3 –

Harper: “How big you are next to

someone else. It was Hayden.”