Numeracy

Numeracy in Maths

This is Asha Lal's third year as a teacher at Wheelers Hill Secondary College. This year she is teaching a Build Year 8 Maths group. Students had prior knowledge of finding the area of 2D shapes and in this lesson. Her focus for this lesson was for students to learn how to find the area of composite shapes. At the start of each lesson, the teaching and learning model at Wheelers Hill Secondary College is for all teachers to write the lesson intentions and success criteria on the board. The students in Asha’s class are asked to write this in their log books for the students to refer back to later.

Asha then uses some of the High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS) on Explicit teaching and Worked Examples to demonstrate to students what they need to do and how to do it. Asha also provides worked examples to students and details each step carefully to solve the problems.

Students were then given problems on the board for them to apply their learning by completing these questions in their Workbook. Asha went around to help students individually. After some time, Asha choose students to share the answers they had calculated. Asha choose different students to come up to the board and complete their working on the board. There is a sense of pride by the students in sharing their knowledge to the class.

Lachlan Azzopardi has volunteered to come to the board and share his understanding with the class.

George Grivas is checking his answer with the teaching and showing his working to the class. 

Raam Waup is also keen to share her knowledge. 

Asha also encourages her students to help each other as peer teaching is another powerful tool to use in the classroom to improve student learning.

The students above from left to right (Koby White, Olivia Robinette and Sofia Escoto Carranza) work together to help each other in solving one of the composite shapes. 

We thank Asha for sharing her lesson on Composite Shapes and allowing us into the class to see the ways that Asha engages her students to achieve their full potential in Maths. 

Michelle Galli

Numeracy Learning Specialist