Week Two:

The first week of term 4 done and dusted. Over the past week I have reflected on a number of different areas within my teaching practice. A personal goal which I have addressed is in relation to knowing what to teach at level one, in regards to pedagogical, assessment and content knowledge.

Over the holidays I spent a lot of time planning and familiarising myself with the teaching content appropriate to level one. During the week I looked into the numeracy project to try and make clearer sense of the content needed to be taught at this level. My first reactions was that the numeracy project is not an easy, nicely laid out programme. I found myself getting confused between the names of stages and strategies. There is a number of areas that don’t overlap or connect nicely. After frustration and a lot of time I decided to stick to following the progression sheets printed of tki. These sheets are very handy but they are quite vague and do not break down the strategy very clearly. Also it must be remembered that these sheets to not show number knowledge progression only strategy progression. And a good numeracy programme must take into account both strategy and knowledge. From discussion with my AT I have come to an understanding that strategy is often the deliberately taught material during groupings. Whilst number knowledge can be easily taught during whole class teaching and also it is likely to be taught indirectly during whole class and group teaching. Another area which students must have daily learning is basic facts. From reflecting on this learning I have come to the conclusion that a numeracy programme needs to be very focused and include a number of different aspects, of which need to be clearly defined and deliberate. Group work must include deliberate strategy teaching because it is in these groups that a teacher is able to listen, discuss and critique a students working in order to direct them towards develop correct strategies. As a whole class, within groups or during follow-up activities number knowledge needs to be taught to in order to give students the foundations to being able to learn and complete strategies. And within this number knowledge, basic fact knowledge must be deliberately taught to give students speed and efficiency in solving strategy. Therefore from my reflection on teaching level one numeracy I have been able to understand what an effective numeracy programme can look like by breaking it down into separate yet deliberate acts of teaching.