Maths

Part of the assessment for our Maths module is that we are given 3 questions to answer in relation to what we observed during our school experience. Its suggested that we have approximately 750 words per question response, and then an introduction and conclusion. In our Maths lecture the other day we were given 2 examples of past one in which to look at, analyse and evaluate.

For the purposes of this blog pose I'm going to refer to the writer as 'she' at times, this is no indication of my feelings or opinions of female students writing in comparison to males writing.

The first example we were given was a response to the question:


'Analyse a misconception in one aspect of calculation (addition, subtraction etc) observed during SE2 (school experience 2) placement and suggest strategies for remediation, with appropriate resources'


The example starts of describing the lesson that was observed. It briefly mentions what the lesson was about, and then explains how it was taught, what the teacher did and what the children had to do. Here it states that 'the children were then asked to help the teacher as she pretended to struggle placing certain coins'.

It seems reasonable, its explaining that although the teacher was competent at the task, and able to do it independantly, she was 'pretending' to require help, thus causing the children to get involved. However, 'pretending to struggle' could be interpreted in a million and 1 different ways. The phrasing used here is unclear and wooly.

Moving on...the lesson appears to be about 'hundreds, tens and units' however the writer does go on to say that once working out these things the children had to figure out the specific amount of money, selecting which calculation/operation to use to find the answer. It then goes on to explain that the children, when writing down the monetary answer, were writing £1.502 instead of £1.52, and it is explained that this misconception has come about due to lack of initial teacher explanation.

So, we've identified a misconception, which we have to do in order to analyse it...however, this misconception isn't about calculations, its about place value-the value of the '0', its about money in the written form. Thus automatically we can see that this example isn't going to answer the question asked.

Another issue with this is the structure, regardless of the misconception being inappropriate for the question, it should be stated at the beginning, and then go on to explain the context. Upon reading, you should be able to see straight off what the issue is that the writer is going to address.

Anyway, the writer goes on to further discuss how and why the children have developed this misconception, although she uses statements which are opinated as opposed to factual, for example 'the children had not made the link between these themselves as expected therefore wrote the wrong answer'. This statement is an assumption made by the writer as to how the children have come about their misconception. The writer cannot claim to know and understand how the misconception came about, nor can she presuppose that they all reached the same one via the same route.

Having discussed the misconception, the writer then goes on to talk about how it could be remedied, or prevented in the future. She states that the misconception could have been prevented had the teacher explained appropriately at the beginning of the lesson, however this implies that the teacher was aware of the misconception before the lesson. If this was the case, then why would the teacher not have addressed it?

She then goes on to talk about how, had the teacher been unaware of the misconception, it perhaps could have been picked up using AFL (assessment for learning) during the lesson, and then addressed through a 'mini plenary'. However, a plenary is usually a way of drawing the lesson to an end, often discussing what has been learnt and whether or not the learning objectives have been met. I feel, the use of the word 'mini' implies that this is something that has been inserted part way through the lesson, in order to deal with the issue. Therefore, how can 'the conclusion' be inserted, in a 'mini' way, during a lesson?

Another remediation method mentioned is that the teacher could have demonstrated a way of teaching which would have avoided the misconception arising to start with. However, once again this infers that the teacher was aware of the misconception before the lesson started. If the writer is trying to say how other teachers could teach in a way so as to avoid this misconception then she needs to write this using future tense and a different subject pronoun.

Next she mentions that the teacher could have used some scenarios in which the children were physically using the relevant skills and information. Again, this implies that the teacher was aware of the misconception, as opposed to saying what could be done in the future.

It is during this point that the writer mentions the possible use of place value cards, and how they could be used to address the misconception. Unfortunately, this goes back to the initial point, in that the misconception is regarding place value as opposed to calculations.

Another thing I have noticed is the lack of paragraphing in the writing. The first sentence of a paragraph should introduce something new, and then the paragraph itself should discuss it, however in this example, the lesson description and misconception are combined as one long paragraph. In addition to this, the sentence structure is poor in some places for example 'she could have used scenarios getting the children to physically act out putting it into context as some children might have already had experience of these situations'.

As a result I can conclude....answering these questions is harder than I thought :P haha I guess I just need to make sure I employ good writing strategies and proof read my work a million and one times!!

I've got a better example to compare it to, but I'l blog that later.