Jo Boaler: Mathematical Mindsets

Chapter 7: From Tracking to Growth Mindset Grouping

One key factor in student achievement is known as "Opportunity to learn."  Put simply, if students spend time in classes where they are given access to high-level content, they achieve at higher levels.

LOW FLOOR, HIGH CEILING TASKS

Students start behaving badly when they are given the message that they cannot achieve . When students start to believe they can achieve, and they understand that I believe in them, bad behaviour and lack of motivation disappear.

To encourage students to take maths to different levels:

1. Provide open-ended tasks.

    • open-ended
    • low floor, high ceiling.
      • These are the MOST engaging and interesting maths tasks
      • They are tasks that teach important maths, inspire interest and encourage creativity.
In a growth mindset classroom, it is the teachers job to challenge, support, and stretch them at exactly the right level.

Such teaching, although demanding, is also extremely fulfilling for teachers, especially when they see students who lack confidence and were previously low-achieving take off and soar.

2.  Offer a choice of tasks.
The choice or the challenge must always be available to all students.

3.  Individualised Pathways
Students who are allowed to choose their content and learning path can achieve at incredibly high levels, from any starting point.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jo Boaler: Mathematical Mindsets

Chapter 5: Rich Mathematical Tasks "Teachers are the most important resource for students.  They are the ones who can create exciting mathematics environments, give students the positive messages they need, and take any math task and make it one that piques students' curiosity and interest.  Studies have shown that the teacher has a greater  impact on student learning than any other variable." (Darling-Hammond, 2000). Engaging maths = curiosity, connection making, challenge, creativity and usually collaboration. Maths excitement = maths engagement. Number sense is crucial. Students have to be taught to listen to and respect each other's thinking. It is crucial to engage in "low floor, high ceiling" tasks. What comes first?  The chicken or the egg?  THE EGG!  Give the real problem first as this engages the students and ignites their curiosity and then give them the method. We want students to think intuitively about the problem. We want studen
Read more

Abandon Subjects

Image
http://www.bamradionetwork.com/bloggers/why-we-need-to-abandon-subjects-and-focus-on-big-picture-learning What a great article outlining the need to flip education on its head.  Why do we continue to try to make the learning match the real world or make connections to the real world? What we really need to do is teach the real world! This makes so much sense, yet traditionally in NZ and around the world, we continue to teach subjects in isolation.  This is not what life is all about.
Read more

1 to 1 Counting with Dinah

I am really excited to be getting back to teaching maths in the junior school. When I was previously in the juniors, the teaching of maths was very focused on Numeracy and in particular knowledge. I will be approaching this completely differently now after my PD with Dinah over the past 2 years. I met with Dinah this week and we primarily discussed the teaching of 1 to 1 counting through Strand.
Read more