All schools engaged with the new Maths Curriculum via Oide training in the 2023-2024 school year. It’s now time to start putting the theory and ideas into practice for guest teacher author, Aoife.
The promotion of Maths Talk was the standout feature of the new curriculum for me. It’s a fantastic and easily accessible way for you to get stuck into the new curriculum and I feel it will really make the subject come alive in my class.
There are some fantastic support materials about maths talk available on the Oide website to check out – available here https://pmc.oide.ie/
According to the curriculum, maths talk is a collaborative process where children’s thinking, strategies and ideas are discussed, shared and/or exchanged.
The crucial take away for me was that maths talk can only happen when the culture is just right. I know that building this culture will take time!
According to Ronda’s “Four Freedoms” Research (2012), children need freedom;
- to make mistakes,
- to ask questions,
- to think for themselves,
- to choose their own methods.
I have found that the Oide support materials offer fantastic tips and strategies to help build this culture as well as suggesting opportunities for maths talk.
So what will we actually talk about?
The days of giving children pages and pages of samey sums are gone, thankfully! The new Maths Curriculum repeatedly mentions ‘appropriately engaging and meaningful tasks‘. If the children are stimulated, interested in and inspired by the task, lots of opportunities for maths talk will be generated.
Of course, carefully selected, open ended tasks are the best way to open up a mathematical discussion but creating a bank of those is no simple task!
So where to look for ideas?
The Maths Co-ordinator in my school recently put up some maths displays on our corridors. These are absolutely fantastic for promoting maths talk. All classes are encouraged to visit the displays regularly – the bonus is that the maths talk comes naturally as the tasks are very open ended.
“Odd One Out” pictures made by 2nd Class students.
Here are examples of some of the resources we used from Oide to build these displays.
Examples from Oide Micro Maths.
The Oide Micro-Maths website has a collection of material to download, print and display around school. Maths really is everywhere!
My Problem Solving Journal from Folens is also packed with problem based maths ideas to explore with a class each week. The detailed support notes are really helpful as they include suggested responses to children’s potential questions.
If you’re interested in reflecting on your own current classroom practice in relation to providing opportunities for Maths Talk – Oide have provided a really handy learning environment audit too.
It’s not about WHAT they learn, it’s about HOW!
Maths talk really shows us that how children learn is as important, if not more important than what they learn!
Creating the right culture is certainly my new focus this term in Maths, so give it a try in your maths lessons and do let us know how you get on in the comments.
More on Teachers’ Corner
For even more ideas on creating a positive culture around problem solving, check out some of the other posts on Teachers’ Corner about a problem based approach to learning and the new Maths Curriculum.
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