SMART GOALS

Curriculum

GOAL: My goal is to improve my maths teaching through strengthening my number knowledge

and my understanding of strategies.

WHY: I’ve selected this goal as I have identified maths teaching as an area of low confidence
for me. I believe that this low confidence comes from a weak foundation of number knowledge,
basic facts and key strategies for teaching. It’s extremely important to me that I foster
mathematical confidence in my students and promote enjoyment of maths in the classroom. I
can’t do that if I’m concerned about teaching that myself. I want to be able to help target
students reach their math goals.

IMPLEMENTATION: I’d like to keenly observe my AT and her maths practices, I’d like to watch
how she links number knowledge and strategy and adapts to the needs of different groups.

I want to see how she structures mini workshops for short and sharp bursts of information. I
want to see how she uses vocabulary to help students see patterns in what they’ve learned.

EVIDENCE:

Monday 21.10

I started off by talking small

workshops with target students.

This helped me to learn about the

different abilities of students in the
class. Additionally, I was able to
practise my vocabulary and workshop
style in smaller groups and then
repeat the same lesson so I could
improve.
Wednesday 22.10

I then took several workshops with a target student who operates at Stage 4 and has very slow
maths processing. This was really beneficial as it forced to really refine my explanation and
ensure that my vocabulary matched my explanation. I used imagery in my explanation to try and
help Alize see the patterns and the reason why we get the answers we get. I wanted to try and
use as much of the knowledge that she already knew as possible so she felt like she knew
something and was contributing.

Tuesday 29.10

Continued to take small groups and build my

confidence in new areas such as multiplying
fractions, angles and triangles, fractions of a
set, mixed and improper fractions.
Wednesday 30.10

See ​video ​for workshop teaching

I can see in the video that I have my strategy and I’m feeling confident. What I need to continue
to improve on is my vocabulary and my clear and concise explanation. I believe that with my
growing understanding of Strand teaching that these will naturally improve over time.

However what isn’t shown in the video is that we went on to demonstrate how the mixed
fractions and improper fractions were the same by drawing them as pizzas and shading the right
amount. This was a useful visual aid for these girls who needed further assistance with making
the links between numbers.

My ability to help make these links clear has grown in the last 3 weeks of practicum.

Student comments in his workbook that I’ve helped him

with his work.
 Disposition

GOAL:​ I would like to implement high expectations in my own teaching

WHY: ​First and foremost there is extensive research about the importance of high expectations
teaching. In summary the research suggests that it is not students abilities that determine their
achievements, but rather the expectations of their teachers that can have a significant impact on
their academic performance. To me this says that the power is in my hands to make a difference
for my students and that comes through careful attention to the expectations that I set explicitly
through my teaching and unconsciously through my words, actions and behaviours.

I have a natural tendency in the classroom to be proud of my students no matter what they do
as long as they’ve given things a go. Whilst I still believe this is an important quality and it’s a
part of my teaching philosophy, I also believe that being attuned to my students' needs and
sensing where they can be pushed, questioned and challenged is of equal importance. I noticed
on the very first day of my practicum that my AT had high but not unreasonable expectations of
her students. They were all very aware of these expectations and had a vocabulary to
understand when my AT spoke to them. I believe this has increased their motivation as well as
their self-perception as active learners.

IMPLEMENTATION:

I first looked at how my AT conferenced students and how she commented on their work both in
writing and verbally. I noticed the way she spoke to them about their achievements and how she
knew exactly where they could be challenged.

Things like

‘Wow look how far you’ve come in a year, at the start of the year you were not self-directed,
always asking me questions and now you’ve taken on the role of an active learner and you
challenge yourself’

Or

‘It’s term 4 I shouldn’t still be repeating myself on these instructions, you know how to do this
and you know who to ask and where to go if you don’t know what to do, be a self-directed
learner’
EVIDENCE + REFLECTION:
I worked on individually conferencing students and giving them written feedback. Digging
deeper into their work was a skill I feel I’ve improved over the last few weeks. In the beginning I
just took their word as gospel, if they said they’d finished a task I just trusted that they had. Most
of the time they had finished them but it took a few days for me to realise that sometimes they
went for quantity over quality and they had to be guided to revisit a task and complete in its
entirety with careful attention paid to detail and instructions.

As well as giving written feedback I’ve worked on given clear verbal feedback and setting my
expectations. I want students to know from the outset what I expect them to achieve in a day
and why, I want them to continue to see themselves as self-directed learners and emulate my
AT’s practise in her student led learning programme which in and of itself is a high expectation
programme. I can see myself implementing many of her strategies in my own class next year.

I can see that while I learn the skills at this school and that high expectations should be a state
of mind now matter who the students are, this approach to teaching is even more effective
when you’ve had time to get to know your students. I’m excited to continue to implement my
high expectation practise next year and follow the progress of my students closely.