ANZAC Memorial Service

Our School Captains (Charlotte and Ryan) and Vice-Captains (Archie and Kindra) represented Skye Primary School at the recent ANZAC Memorial Service at Seaford RSL. In preparation, Year 6 students worked with Mrs. Jackson to design and create a beautiful wreath to lay at the service to honour those who have served, and those who continue to serve, in Australia's armed forces.

Explainer: The Four Proficiencies

Each month, the Curriculum page will feature an article that provides insights into an aspect of teaching and learning at Skye PS. Currently, our Early Years team (F-2) is learning how to develop deep mathematical thinking skills through problem-solving scenarios that are fun, engaging, and challenging. These problems are designed to stretch the students thinking, build the courage to take risks, and develop their ability to articulate their thinking and justify their solutions. In this process, teachers are challenged to initially stand back and allow students to experience a necessary period of productive struggle. This approach to teaching Mathematics complements our teaching of core concepts and skills through Explicit Direction Instruction by also focusing on the development of the four proficiencies. So, what are they...?

A worldwide shift in emphasis in how we learn and teach mathematics

By Peter Burrows, Larissa Raymond and Tony Flack (EdPartnerships International)

Over the past twenty years the combination of knowledge, skills capabilities and dispositions necessary to become proficient in Mathematics have gradually become clearer (National Research Council 2001). The proficiencies needed for learning mathematics and working mathematically are widely accepted and have been inscribed in curriculum documents around the world. They are central to both TIMMS and PISA assessments, and figure prominently in the Victorian Curriculum.

The proficiencies of Understanding, Fluency, Problem Solving and Reasoning are fundamental to learning mathematics and working mathematically and are applied across all three strands Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics and Probability. (VCAA, 2018).

Research undertaken alongside the PISA assessments (OECD 2016) shows that four proficiency related teacher behaviours were associated with a 19-point increase in maths scores across OECD countries. The teacher: (i.) asks questions that make us reflect on the problem; (ii.) offers problems that require us to think for an extended time; (iii.) asks us to decide on our own procedures for solving complex problems; (iv.) asks us to explain how we solved a problem.

The four proficiencies offer a basis for a shared language that teachers, students and school leaders can use to describe what it means to learn mathematics and be mathematicians, which teachers can use to shape and inform planning. The proficiencies are not extra things to teach, rather they develop through the types of problems offered to learners, how these problems are introduced and how learners are supported to grapple with them. Fostering productive learner dispositions and establishing classroom norms further supports their development.

Five compelling reasons for a stronger emphasis on the proficiencies.

There are at least five compelling reasons for an increased emphasis on the four proficiencies.

1. The future lives and prospects of learners will benefit from this shift

2. Learners are more likely to embrace and enjoy opportunities to learn mathematics

3. Mathematics will be livelier, more rewarding and engaging to teach

4. The world needs mathematically proficient citizens

5. As a country we risk being left behind if we don’t…

1. The future lives and prospects of learners will benefit from this shift Students studying now will have numerous jobs and multiple careers over the course of their lives. Increasingly these jobs will be non-routine, driven in part by increasing levels of automation and will require new and more sophisticated skills and dispositions (FYA 2018) This will require adaptability, creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving capabilities, financial and digital literacies and a capacity to work effectively with others (Tytler et al. 2019). Developing the mathematical proficiencies will play an important role in preparing and equipping learners for the challenging, non-routine working lives that lay ahead of them (OECD 2018).

2. Learners are more likely to embrace and enjoy opportunities to learn maths The types of problems that promote the four proficiencies are often open-ended or have an open middle or draw on authentic problems from social or professional contexts, which promote an appreciation of the power and relevance of mathematics in everyday life. This involves problems of a type that are "accessible, extendable, encourage decision-making, creativity and higher order questioning", make use of "multiple representations (and) allow students to shift roles and explain and teach one another” (Swan 2008). Learners become more engaged and invested in maths learning when it is based on problems that offer these sense-making opportunities and report being more energised, interested in, and confident about learning Mathematics. (Boaler 2019, Boaler and Selling 2017, Bae and Kokka 2016)

3. Mathematics will be livelier, more rewarding and engaging to teach Use of problems and tasks which promote the proficiencies build stronger teaching repertoires, equipping teachers for a wider range of learner needs and circumstances. The development of this repertoire builds teacher confidence and a sense of professional efficacy and a view that all learners are capable of becoming more proficient with mathematics. Working with problems that are authentic or open-ended is also more interesting and engaging for teachers. It involves an increased level of agency and flexibility, a deeper sense of meaning and purpose and offers opportunities to expand and further develop professional practices. The stronger interest, engagement and more positive attitudes towards mathematics observed in learners is also professionally rewarding. (Anderson et al 2018).

4. The world needs mathematically proficient citizens The value and significance of mathematics has perhaps never been greater. Learning mathematics is a powerful means of developing a capacity to think logically, abstractly, critically and creatively, which are highly valued 21st century competencies in many industries and domains of society. The current circumstances, which include challenges related to global warming, population pressures, a worldwide pandemic, widespread automation and digitisation means that the world needs mathematically proficient citizens. This is reflected in the latest iteration of PISA, which promotes the role of mathematics, …in a rapidly changing world driven by new technologies and trends in which citizens are creative and engaged, making non-routine judgments for themselves and the society in which they live. (OECD 2020)

5. As a country we risk being left behind if we don’t… While respectfully acknowledging and welcoming the concerted efforts of educators and school leaders throughout Australia, the latest PISA results indicate that the Mathematics levels of 15-year-old students in Australia have declined by ‘one-and-a-quarter years of school since 2003’ (Masters, 2019). NAPLAN gains in Mathematics have been marginal or elusive in most Australian states and territories. Over the past three TIMMS cycles, Australia’s Year 4 mathematics scores have remained the same, while the Year 8 maths score is exactly the same as the corresponding score in 1995. Over a similar period, there has been a gradual decline in the percentage of Year 11 and 12 students opting to study Mathematics (Kennedy et. al., 2014). While the proportion of Year 12 students choosing to study higher levels of Mathematics is at its lowest level in more than 20 years – down from 14.2% in 1995 to 9.4% in 2017 (AMSI, 2018). An increased emphasis on developing the four proficiencies could reverse these trends and set our students on a more equal footing with their international counterparts.

Timothy Bernau

Assistant Principal

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