2018 May Archive - Mathematics and Science in SD#38 (Richmond)

Archive for May, 2018

Story Workshop series – 2018

Posted on: May 24th, 2018 by jnovakowski

A group of district teacher consultants and school-based teachers came together this spring to facilitate a three-part Story Workshop after school series. This was in response to many requests and questions from teachers in our district about Story Workshop. The facilitators of the series were: Sharon Baatz, Louesa Byrne, Michelle Hikida, Carrie Bourne, Lisa Schwartz, Marie Thom and myself.

A goal of this series was to honour the work of Opal School educators who developed the structures and practices of Story Workshop as a way to connect the arts and literacy. Opal School educators draw upon social-constructivist learning theory and have been informed by the early childhood educators in Reggio Emilia, Italy as well as American educators such as those working with Harvard’s Project Zero initiatives. Opal School has a deep commitment to equity and access for all students and to develop student agency.

They are many other ways we might engage our students in storytelling experiences – oral, digital, writers workshop etc but the focus of this series was to create awareness and understanding of Story Workshop as developed by Opal educators. The Opal educators have developed five structures or stages of Story Workshop. Some stages are more for the educator to consider and some take more time than other stages. Some of the structures such as negotiation or congress might involve small groups of students and an educator instead of the whole class. Over the series, we hope to develop a deeper understanding of the process of Story Workshop and what it offers the students in our classrooms and what it offers us as educators.

In our first session on April 9, we focused on the stages of Preparation and Provocation. We watched and discussed the Opal videos and Michelle, Louesa and Sharon shared examples of these stages of Story Workshop from their Richmond classrooms.

We watched and discussed the first two videos of the series and used the following questions to frame our small group discussions:

What do you notice about the materials the teachers are using?

When you look around your own setting, what unexpected materials might you use in new ways?

What do I want the children to learn? How can I support this learning?

Story Preparation begins with our image of children. Preparation is about preparing the environment; setting up the space, creating an environment that supports children to tell their stories. Opal educators strive for environments that are playful, engaging, naturally motivating, with multiple opportunities for all children to enter into the work.

At Opal, educators convert social-constructivist theory and inquiry into practice by offering provocations. A Story Provocation is a question that is introduced to children to engage and support their interests and curiosity.

The Opal videos can be found here:

Story Workshop – Story Preparation

Story Workshop – Story Provocation

Educators attending the series were each provided with the book Equity and Access Through Story Workshop.

The videos and supporting text are available at no cost to Opal School Online Sustaining Members and at a small cost to non-members: You’ll find both here.

Educators were asked to make a commitment to something they would try, inspired by the first session, and to be prepared to share a reflection, documentation or an artifact at our next session.

At the second session on April 30, we began by having teachers share what they had tried around Story Workshop with their students. Lisa shared how Story Workshop can be part of a balanced literacy program. Marie talked about different ways to approach Story Workshop with different ages of students and that the process needs time and patience, not rushing towards recording/writing the stories.

We also shared copies of this blog post from Opal for educators to read and reflect upon their own practice and how Story Workshop might be enacted in their classrooms and schools.

We focused on the next two stages of Story Workshop – invitation & negotiation and story creation.

At Opal, the invitation and negotiation time focuses on students being metacognitive about their plans for each day. It is often just a few minutes with opportunities for educators to have a one-on-one check in with students.

At Opal, educators invite children to explore the classroom and materials in search of their stories and this time can last about 45 minutes. Story Creation is a time of looking for and finding stories from the child’s real or imaginary life. Children play with materials, talk to each other, and tell and write their stories.

Sharon and Louesa shared examples from their classrooms:

The Opal videos can be found here:

Story Workshop – Story Negotiation

Story Workshop – Story Creation

Again, teachers were asked to try something around story negotiation or creation and to consider an area of Story Workshop that they would like to go deeper with.

At our final session on May 14, we invited teachers into The Nest and to think about how different materials might inspire different types of stories.

Each educator was given the book I Am A Story by Dan Yaccarino (it comes in both English and French) as a provocation for adults and children to think about different ways that stories can be shared.

We focused on the importance of Story Congress as a way for educators and peers to give feedback on students’ stories. Sharon, Louesa and Michelle shared some of the structures they use in their classrooms for this stage of Story Workshop.

The Opal video can be found here:

Story Workshop – Story Congress

Opal School has online courses available to extend and deepen understanding of playful literacy and Story Workshop. More information can be found HERE.

This was a very well attended series with a waiting list and we hope to be able to offer it again next year. Many teachers asked if we could provide opportunities to visit Richmond classrooms to see Story Workshop in action and we will put something in place for this for next year.

Some of the feedback from series participants include:

“I appreciate how professional the mentor presented so many awesome ideas, so well laid out. This series has profoundly affected my thinking and practice.”

“This series helped me think about Story Workshop, storytelling, oral storytelling, loose parts and how they are different yet integrated.”

“It has helped me breathe. Hearing how others navigate and problem-solve the same challenges I have encountered has given me comfort and loads of inspiration.”

“This series extended my thinking about Story Workshop by exposing me to more diverse ways to engage with stories – outdoor, leaves/herbs, spindle whorl, clay markings etc.”

~Janice

creating spaces for playful inquiry: thinking about the hundred languages – April 2018

Posted on: May 16th, 2018 by jnovakowski

For our final session of this year’s Creating Spaces for Playful Inquiry professional learning series, we focused on the Hundred Languages – a grounding element of the educational approach from the childcare centres in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The Hundred Languages concept is based on a poem by Loris Malaguzzi who suggests that all children have a hundred languages (or more) in which to express themselves and that are role as educators (and school systems) is to nurture these languages, not suppress them.

As Richmond educators entered the room, they were invited to they were asked to reflect on how the hundred languages are living in their classrooms.

Hundred_Languages_Provocations_April19_2018

The Richmond educators who visited Opal School in Portland over spring break shared their reflections on the experience through documentation panels.

Carrie Bourne, Jen Yager and Julie Curran shared what they learned at Opal and how they have taken some of these ideas up in their own teaching contexts.

Marie Thom and I shared some of our experiences from our Canadian Study Tour of Reggio Emilia in March. I shared some ideas I saw about intersecting digital and analog languages through digital landscapes and Marie shared the power of the language of food and the metaphor of the table to bring people together.

After dinner together (enacting the table metaphor) our interest groups met with playful inquiry mentors to share ideas and go deeper with their understanding about playful inquiry.

We collected feedback from educators who have attended this three part series as we reflect on our learning from this year and think ahead to next year.

“Love the opportunity to collaborate with others and hear others share about their thinking/learning and what they are trying in their classrooms. It is thought-provoking and inspiring.”

“Playful inquiry and teaching is a learning process, always growing and changing and best in collaboration with others teachers and peers.”

“This series has kept me inspired when I’ve felt uninspired or simply tired.”

“This series completely changed the lens through which I see my role as the teacher and the roles of the students.”

There was considerable interest in creating opportunities for teachers to visit others’ classrooms to see playful inquiry in action and to be able to collaborate with colleagues from across the district.

Regardless of how how things unfold for professional learning opportunities in our district for next year, we know we have a strong and growing community of educators committed to teaching and learning through playful inquiry. Thanks to all of the educators involved in this series for their contributions and participation!

~Janice on behalf of the Playful Inquiry Mentors

2017-18 big mathematical ideas for grades 3-5

Posted on: May 13th, 2018 by jnovakowski 2 Comments

In its fourth year, a group of grades 3-5 teachers came together three times after school to think about the big mathematical ideas for this grade range, considering the pedagogical content knowledge needed to teach and assess student learning. Our first session of the year on October 18 focused on the number concepts big ideas in our curriculum which at gates 3-5 focus on a deep understanding of fractions.

We began with an image from fractiontalks.com – a website curated by Canadian math educator Nat Banting. We considered what students needed to understand about fractions to engage with this task and anticipated how are students might respond to the challenge of figuring out what fractional part of the large square is the shaded blue triangle.

We considered how different materials provided different affordances for thinking about fractions, particularly thinking about different ways to represent fractions – set, area and linear. Some of the text slides from the session and a handout follow.

BMI_October_2017_textslides

BMI_Fractions_2017

Unfortunately, I had to cancel our January session due to illness.

We came together again on April 11 and based on feedback from the group, discussed computational fluency and the role of inquiry in learning mathematics. We revisited instructional routines such as Which One Doesn’t Belong? (wodb.ca) and considered how these routines incorporate questioning, wondering and nurture the curricular competencies in mathematics.

BMI_April_2018_textslides

~Janice

2017-18 primary teachers study group: session 5

Posted on: May 13th, 2018 by jnovakowski

On April 12, our study group met on the dyke of the middle arm of the Fraser River. We were joined by “Indigenous Plant Diva” and current storyteller in residence for the Vancouver Public Library, Cease Wyss. A short video about Cease can be found HERE.

As we walked along the river, Cease pointed out different plants to us and shared knowledge and stories about the plants. Paying attention to a plant’s colour, shapes and texture can indicate part of the body or ailment it can provide medicine for. For example, red berries often support blood, muscles and organs.

Cease explained the importance of cattails to cleanse the water along the river as well as providing food and nesting materials for birds. We learned how some plants like dead nettle and chickweed can be used as salves to treat skin ailments and how other plants such as stinging nettle or salmonberry leaves can be infused in hot water to create teas to address different ailments.

We learned to identify plantain (frog’s leaf), dead nettle, chickweed, Nootka rose, sheep sorrel and horsetail, the oldest plant on the planet.

Teachers left with so much new knowledge about local plant species. This knowledge building is an important part of our study group and was something that was requested by teachers to enhance they work they are doing with their students around storytelling outdoors. We can find ways to share this new knowledge with our students and weave this in to our storytelling experiences.

~Janice

Talk With Our Kids About Money 2018

Posted on: May 12th, 2018 by jnovakowski

As part of a national financial literacy month every April, the Richmond School District participates in Talk With Our Kids About Money Day (TWOKAM) the third Wednesday in April. Financial literacy is a new part of BC’s redesigned mathematics curriculum with a content learning standard at each grade level from K-grade 9.

To raise awareness of the resources available to teacher, local CFEE (Canadian Federation for Economic Education) representative Tracy Weeks shared materials and information at our Elementary Math Focus Afternoon in January.

In April, an assembly was held at Burnett Secondary with CFEE president Gary Rabbior talking to students about financial literacy. Tracy Weeks (CFEE) facilitated an information session for parents at Hamilton Elementary on April 9.

On April 18 – national TWOKAM day – a finale event was held for parents and students at Brighouse Elementary. Student projects from Burnett Secondary were on display and guest speaker Paul Lermitte shared ideas with parents for developing financial literacy with their children at home. Thank you to Brighouse for hosting this well-attended event!

We hope to continue to grow the idea of “Money Fairs” (think financial literacy fairs like science fairs) in our district as we continue to teach and learn about financial literacy in our classrooms.

TWOKAM video

TWOKAM – CFEE website link

~Janice

March thinking together: What is computational fluency?

Posted on: May 12th, 2018 by jnovakowski

Computational fluency is defined as having efficient, flexible and accurate methods for computing.

-NCTM, 2000

Computational fluency develops from a strong sense of number.

(BC Math Curriculum, Big Idea, K-9, 2015)

In BC’s redesigned curriculum, computational fluency has been given a heightened emphasis. In mathematics, there are typically four strands of topics/content and in this iteration of our curriculum, a fifth strand – computational fluency – has been added and this is reflected in the big ideas and curricular competencies and content.

The meta big idea around computational fluency in our BC K-9 Mathematics curriculum is:

Computational fluency develops from a strong sense of number.

There is a big idea for computational fluency at each grade level:

K: One-to-one correspondence and a sense of 5 and 10 are essential for fluency with numbers.

Grade 1: Addition and subtraction with numbers to 10 can be modelled concretely, pictorially, and symbolically to develop computational fluency.

Grade 2: Development of computational fluency in addition and subtraction with numbers to 100 requires an understanding of place value.

Grade 3: Development of computational fluency in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of whole numbers requires flexible decomposing and composing.

Grade 4: Development of computational fluency and multiplicative thinking requires analysis of patterns and relations in multiplication and division.

Grade 5: Computational fluency and flexibility with numbers extend to operations with larger (multi-digit) numbers.

Grade 6: Computational fluency and flexibility with numbers extend to operations with whole numbers and decimals.

Grade 7: Computational fluency and flexibility with numbers extend to operations with integers and decimals.

Grade 8: Computational fluency and flexibility extend to operations with fractions.

Grade 9: Computational fluency and flexibility with numbers extend to operations with rational numbers.

As computational fluency with whole numbers is focused on in the earlier grades, it is expected that students will apply number sense and computational fluency and flexibility to their work with decimal numbers, greater numbers, integers and fractions.

For addition and subtraction and then multiplication and division, students develop computational fluency over three years – beginning with emerging fluency, then developing through proficiency and then moving on to extending fluency with increased flexibility and ability to apply strategies across contexts and content.

For example, with addition and subtraction:

In Grade 3, the curricular content learning standard is “addition and subtraction facts to 20 (emerging computational fluency)“.

In Grade 4, it is “addition and subtraction facts to 20 (developing computational fluency)”.

And in Grade 5, it is “addition and subtraction facts to 20 (extending computational fluency)”.

It is also important to be aware of what comes before and after these three stages of development. In grades 1 and 2, students are introduced to the concepts of addition and subtraction as well as the related symbolic notation. They begin to practice mental math computational strategies building on their understanding of five and ten and decomposing numbers to work flexibly with addition and subtraction questions. In grades 6&7, students apply computational strategies that they have developed for addition and subtraction facts with greater whole numbers, decimal numbers and integers.

There is a similar progression for multiplication and division facts.

A note about memorizing…memorizing is one form of learning but is not necessarily related to students having computational fluency. Many teachers in our district report that their students have memorized their addition or multiplication facts but need support with thinking flexibly and fluently with numbers. In our BC mathematics curriculum, the expectation is that by the end of Grade 3 for addition and the end of Grade 5 for multiplication, that most students will be able to recall their facts. In a previous curriculum, recall was defined as being able to compute within three seconds. For some students, there may be instant memory retrieval and for other students they may bring the sum or product to mind through an efficient mental computational strategy or associative retrieval process.

Number Talks are an essential instructional routine in developing strategies, mathematical discourse and creating awareness about computational fluency. Key resources include:

Number Talks

BC_Computational_Fluency

So some questions to think about…

How would you define computational fluency? What does it look like? sound like?

What do your students need move towards more developed computational fluency?

What do you need to understand more about regarding a continuum of learning and specific strategies related to computational fluency?

What are different ways to develop computational fluency? What instructional routines, games or tasks could we use for practice?

How can we communicate the goals of computational fluency to parents?

~Janice

elementary math focus afternoon 2018

Posted on: May 11th, 2018 by jnovakowski

On the afternoon of January 26, staffs from twelve elementary schools gathered at Grauer Elementary for our annual Elementary Math Focus Afternoon.

The overview slides (photographs from classrooms not included to reduce file size) from the opening to the afternoon can be found here:

Math_Focus_Opening_2018_textslidesonly

Many school teams brought displays to share how they have been working with BC’s redesigned mathematics curriculum.

Educators could choose from a variety of Richmond teacher-led sessions to learn about instructional routines and practices that are aligned with the BC redesigned curriculum.

FINAL_Elementary Math Focus Afternoon Jan 26 2018 program

Handouts from Fred Harwood’s sessions can be downloaded here:

Elem Focus Day Jan 2018 Rich Investigations

2018 Elem Math Focus Visual patterns

Thanks to Tracy Weeks of the Canadian Federation for Economic Education (CFEE) for coming and sharing information about financial literacy with Richmond educators.

As educators gathered back in the gym for an end of afternoon prize draw of math resources, they were left with a reminder to consider the mathematical story that is being told in their classrooms and schools. What story do we want our students to tell about their mathematical experience here in our district?

~Janice

graduation numeracy assessment – January 2018

Posted on: May 11th, 2018 by jnovakowski

On January 26, I spent part of my morning at Richmond Secondary working with the whole staff to examine the Graduation Numeracy Assessment – how numeracy is defined, the numeracy processes, example questions and ways to embed numeracy tasks in all courses. Educators worked in cross-disciplinary groups to choose one of the sample questions to work through together, being mindful of how their students might engage with these questions.

The overview slides from the morning can be found here: GNAoverview_Richmond_January_2018

Detailed information about the BC Graduation Numeracy Assessment can be found through the BC curriculum website. There is a design specifications package, pre-assessment tasks that students/classes can do before the assessment to learn about the numeracy processes, a collaborative learning guide, videos, sample questions, scoring guide and student exemplars as well as information on the background and development of the assessment and information for parents.

link to Graduation Numeracy Assessment information

In Richmond, two of our secondary schools (SLSS and Burnett) participated in the gradual roll-out of the writing of the Graduation Numeracy Assessment. Two or three classes from each school participated in the assessment and will receive their results in April. Both schools collected student feedback and the Vice-Principals shared this feedback along with their logistical recommendations at a secondary vice-principals meeting in April.

~Janice

creating spaces for playful inquiry: thinking about reflection – January 2018

Posted on: May 11th, 2018 by jnovakowski

On January 25, Richmond educators gathered at Grauer for our second dinner session of our Creating Spaces for Playful Inquiry professional learning series. This month our focus was on reflection and time. Educators shared their experiences engaging in playful inquiry with their students and considering the role of reflection in documentation and making both students’ and our professional learning visible.

After dinner together, teachers participated in interest groups facilitated by our playful inquiry mentors.

A handout with curricular connections to the idea of reflection can be found here: Reflections_Provocations_Jan25_2018

~Janice

2017-18 primary teachers study group: session 4

Posted on: May 10th, 2018 by jnovakowski

On March 1, the primary teachers study group met at the Richmond Nature Park. We shared resources for learning about local living things and discussed the different services the Nature Park provides to schools and the community. The Nature Park is situated on a bog which is a very unique ecosystem.

We visited different areas of the park, watching the birds come and go from the feeders, walking along the trails and boardwalk area.

How does looking closely at a found object help you think about its story? What is the story of this (skeleton) leaf?

There was still snow on the ground in some of the more shaded areas of the park and we used the snow as a story context. How could we use the snow as a background for map-making? We used found natural materials to create a map of a special place to inspire memories and story.

The Nature House has lots of interactive displays. living things (including a functioning bee hive), and lots of information about species of plants and animals living in Richmond. Brochures are available listing local plants, birds and insects as well as brochures with self-guided tours of the park. We were all keen to continue to build our own knowledge of local species to be able to weave this knowledge into the outdoor learning experiences we are creating for our students.

The Nature Park Society’s website can be found here: Richmond Nature Park Society

The City of Richmond’s Nature Park web page can be found here: City of Richmond – Nature Park

~Janice