170 likes | 467 Views
GUIDED GROUP WORK IN MATHEMATICS. Guided group work is about providing opportunity for extended talk, with groups of children selected for a particular purpose. Guided group work. Is integral to quality-first teaching
E N D
GUIDED GROUP WORK IN MATHEMATICS Guided group work is about providing opportunity for extended talk, with groups of children selected for a particular purpose
Guided group work • Is integral to quality-first teaching • Is informed by detailed assessment of particular children’s learning with opportunities for further assessment • Involves grouping children with a shared and current learning need. • Has a very clear teacher role in scaffolding and supporting learning • Involves the giving of clear feedback to children on the focus of learning and the progress made
Guided Group Work ‘Working with a group can provide assessment information that is more difficult to capture in the whole-class context; it provides an opportunity to discuss the mathematics in more detail with individuals in the group. The focused attention given to a group helps to inform future planning and teaching. It also gives children who are not active contributors in the whole class the opportunity to participate more directly, share their ideas and extend their learning within a small group of peers.’ (P67) Williams Review – June 2008
Why have guided sessions? • Focus on a concept, skill or strategy that assessment shows a group have not learnt • Pre-teaching • Acceleration of slow moving children • Challenge more able • Assessment (APP) • Discussion with ‘hidden’ children • Develop reasoning skills and mathematical language
How do I identify these children? • Day to day assessment for learning e.g. plenary discussions, marking, self and peer assessment etc. • Following a planned assessment activity • Periodic assessment shows underperforming groups • Feedback from TA • Following up previous guided group sessions • Ability groups (flexible)
What strategies should I use? This depends on the purpose of the session, but will probably include: • Share LO, and ensure children know what they have learnt, linking to whole class work • Scaffold (provide support) if necessary and guide discussions, but reduce as children’s confidence grows • Observe and challenge using probing questions • Focus on language and reasoning – aim for a high percentage of children talk • Involve all children – paired, individual and group work • Encourage risk taking
What should we see in a Guided Group session? • Exploring the Mathematics • Collaborative work • Effective Listening • Scaffolding • Building Confidence • Inclusion
Guided group work in mathematics provides focused opportunities to: • Develop children’s use of mathematical language • Engage selected children in sustained dialogue and mental mathematics • Use models and images • Introduce and apply new notation and symbols to support recording • Promote a ‘can do’ approach • Review the presentation, accuracy and efficiency of methods avoiding any sense a method is right or wrong
Potential Obstacles • Work produced could be of a low standard • Pupils mis-understand what is required of them • Some pupils struggle to work independently • Certain pupils display off-task behaviour • Small number of pupils do not complete the task set • ‘Stuck’ pupils unsure what to do next…..
Practical ways to deal with potential obstacles • High expectations of standards of learning and behaviour • Making learning intentions clear • The learning environment ( how can it be used to support independent learning?) • Strategies to develop and support pupils working independently
Developing independence • Stop Think Use Clues Kids • Model ‘stuckness’ • Talk partners, special thinker • Differentiation • Resilience • We only learn when we make mistakes • Trial and improvement
Key Actions • Teach a guided group daily • Use your day to day assessment to inform your guided sessions • Don’t forget to show on your planning your guided groups • Use the guided sessions to inform your assessments of your pupils • Have a range of activities for guided – knowledge, skills and problem solving!!!