[Student 1] I don't think I'm going to use Maths in life.
Why do I need to learn this?
[Student 2] I already have an apprenticeship. I don't see why we need this?
[Jack] Alright students. We have our right angle triangle. We have Pythagoras' Theorem and we've
rearranged it to solve for the shorter side. What's next?
[Student 3] But Sir when are we going to use this in real life?
[Jack] This is a question I'm sure most teachers have heard in the classroom on an everyday basis.
[gentle music]
I'm sure most Maths teachers have had questions around the relevance of Maths in the real world
and I often wonder if it's as a result of poor motivation, or disengagement in the classroom.
I've also wondered whether there is a correlation between poor engagement and
non-submission of assessment or poor quality of student responses to problem-solving questions.
I just wanted to analyse our student data to see if we could find out more
of what we were seeing on the surface and I reached out to our numeracy mentor Anna-Riitta.
Our initial investigation showed that some
students had not experienced success in mathematics for quite some time.
We wondered whether this was a factor leading to poor disposition in Maths.
We all use mathematics every day and I want my students to see how important it is.
But how to re-engage students and boost their disposition
to ensure that every student is succeeding?
[Anthony] We became involved in the M in STEM cluster project because
we saw it as ticking all the boxes in terms of our strategic agenda.
For the last number of years we've looked at three areas - successful students,
quality staff, and engaged community.
And the project fit hand-in-glove with our agenda.
Student disposition in Mathematics has been something of a concern for us over the Junior
years of school and in Year 10 this program allowed us to focus on success for kids in Maths.
At the end of 2020 as part of our Scan and Assess of
our Annual Improvement Plan we noticed that Mathematics in Year 9 particularly was an issue.
40 percent of our kids were getting C or better.
As a cluster, we're using an inquiry approach with productive disposition
in mathematics as our shared problem of practice.
Our next steps were to seek the help of experts for
evidence-based strategies to improve disposition.
[Jack] The M in Stem initiative connected us with Dr Mia O'Brien who is an education researcher.
So following the presentation we gained a
deeper understanding of what disposition is - both from a student and teacher point of
view - and we decided we wanted to start to tackle a problem here at Gympie State High.
[Greg] I'm always happy to support schools and teachers in their inquiry journeys.
I knew that Jack and Anna-Riitta wanted
evidence-based solutions to their identified challenge.
In fact the cluster was working together on the shared problem of practice.
They each identified that building productive dispositions would have
the most impact on the Mathematics outcomes for their students - the Year 10s in particular.
In my role as Principal Advisor, I questioned the schools around their
goals and actions to ensure they were on the right path towards positive change.
[Jack] We created a pre and post survey for students to complete.
Students were to rate themselves on statements such as, "I'm good at Mathematics."
"Mathematics makes sense to me."
"I want to get better at mathematics."
"Mathematics will always be difficult or confusing."
"Mathematics is boring."
And, "Mathematics is important."
Following analysis of the initial survey,
it showed that the majority of students who thought they were not good at mathematics,
and that mathematics is boring - they also believed that mathematics is not important.
So this confirmed our thoughts about a possible root cause behind the issue that we are facing,
and our plan started to take shape.
As a Mathematics teacher it is my job to ensure that students value Mathematics.
And it's at this time I recalled a conversation with my builder a number of years ago.
When he heard I was a Maths teacher he discussed with me his experience
in working with another school, where he invited students out to a job site.
At this job site these students participated in a range of activities that included hands-on
brick laying, concreting, measurement, geometry, and ordering tasks that enabled
them to see the practical applications of mathematics in the real world today.
It was then I realised that this is something that we can replicate here at Gympie State High School.
[Anna-Riitta] Numeracy is basically the application of Mathematics in everyday life.
So it's important to have a good understanding of Mathematics and
how it is applied, to be able to be numerate.
To provide these examples, we planned a series of incursions and excursions to
various workplaces - this allows students to see the mathematics that's used in the workplace,
the importance of that mathematics, and in a variety of different situations.
We're both really busy in our current roles, and we found it a challenge to arrange
excursions and incursions - as well as our teaching.
Our industry liaison officer supported us in arranging excursions
in workplaces, and incursions in school.
Kerry's local business connections opened a lot of doors for us.
[Kerry] Gympie has such a broad range of industry on offer,
and I see my role to connect those industries and work opportunities
with our students here at Gympie High, and to liaise between the two.
In this round, we have arranged to visit a sheet metal workshop, a building site to
see a bricklayer in action, and we also have an incursion from a fire hydrant testing officer.
In the next round we'll be visiting other local businesses including a hairdresser,
a bakery, and a car dealership with mechanics on site, and the list continues to grow.
[Linda] In the next episode we'll see how students engage with local businesses,
and how local business owners feel about engaging with students.
We'll also learn about the impact of this program on the Mathematics outcome for students,
the school steps forward, and how to start a similar initiative at your school.