How can we solve messy problems in the mathematics classroom? In 2017, Associate Professor Katie Makar presented how mathematical inquiry improves pedagogy over time at the STEM Teacher Symposium held in Brisbane. She described letting students wrestle with problems, just like the ones real professionals run into.
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e-ako PLD 360 is an interactive professional development module to support teachers with inquiry. One of these modules is Making statistics and probability understandable for your students. Part of this module which focuses on Asking statistical questions, includes Katie Makar discussing the importance of connecting mathematics and statistics to students' lives.
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Mathematical Inquiry into Authentic Problems
This special topic is part of the reSolve: Maths by Inquiry project. There are ten inquiry units which are available. These were written by the team here at IMPACT to assist teachers with implementing the 4D Guided Inquiry model. Two inquiries we have highlighted at this site include: Tea Party: Providing Foundation students with a purposeful context for counting. 10 000 Centicubes: Challenging Year Four students to work flexibly with larger numbers. We invite you to give these a try. |
Written by the crew here at IMPACT: Inquiry Maths Pedagogy in Action, the Teacher's Information Pack at reSolve provides you with guidance on teaching mathematical inquiries into authentic problems. These are inquiries that: (1) are driven by an inquiry question; (2) contain ambiguities that require negotiation; and (3) require mathematical evidence to address the problem and justify a proposed solution.
The mathematical inquiry units are structured around the 4D inquiry model. The 4Ds consist of four phases -Discover, Devise, Develop and Defend —that describe the process students go through. Guided inquiries offer optional opportunities to Diverge (an optional 5th ‘D’) from the specific inquiry to integrate or connect with other content areas, or to explore further questions that emerge. Another feature of the 4D model is the Checkpoint, where the class pauses to share interim ideas and challenges. Download the Teacher's Information Pack from the reSolve website to learn more. Free downloadable copies of the 4D Guided Inquiry map and the Evidence Triangle for the classroom - or for students to paste into their maths inquiry books - are available on the Free Resources page of this website. Become a member to access a range of sizes to download. |
Presented by Associate Professor Katie Makar, Introducing Inquiry-based Learning in the Classroom highlights key reasons for students not choosing to study maths, describes problem solving in the Australian Curriculum and defaults of human thinking. The slides include processes for using mathematical inquiry in the classroom and the author considers some challenges of this task, presenting benefits to both teachers and learners of mathematics.
Members can access these slides in full.
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Presented by Judith Hillman and Karen Huntly, Developing Classroom Talk shared ways to focus on quality classroom talk in a mathe inquiry classroom. This process is considered over a school year.
Members can access these slides in full.
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Jill Fielding-Wells presents key messages made by students learning mathematics in an argument-based, inquiry mathematics classroom. She explains the Evidence-Conclusion-Question triangle and how to build a classroom climate that fosters argumentation.
Members can access these slides in full.
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Building on the Innovate (Purple) PAL's owl, Sue Allmond presents the importance of Opening up the task. These slides explain a range of strategies for opening up regular mathematics task and include illustrative examples of this process in action.
Members can access these slides in full.
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