Why focus on Mathematical Resilience?

Working on the assumption that... mathematical resilience will improve mathematical

achievement.

• Students taking a greater responsibility for their own learning – students are discovering mathematical concepts rather than just accepting information that is passed on• Resilience can be taught and learnt • Resilience positively impacts learners, empowering them and creating success for all students• It can become a common classroom and school language about learning • Maintains high expectations of all Aboriginal students to achieve • Valuing mathematics and its connection to the world • Learnt skills are transferrable to others areas of learning and also life for future learning

Defining mathematical resilience Resilience in general...

“Resilience refers to the ability to successfully manage your life and adapt to change and stressful events in healthy and constructive ways”

(Dent, M).

“An individual’s ability to thrive and fulfil potential despite or perhaps because of stressors or risk factors” (Neill, J).

How does this connect with mathematical learning and success?

“When mathematically resilient pupils are required to use mathematics in a new situation they will expect to find it hard at first but will have

strategies or approaches to overcome the initial “can’t do it” response” (Johnston-Wilder S & Lee C).

Resilience Indicators How can we identify resilience in students?

• Confidence in their own ability to try something new• Sharing their knowledge willingly with others • A range of useful strategies to apply in different situations • Challenging themselves• Solving different problems • Formulating their own questions – identify what they don’t already know and

possible ways to explore this • Identifying what comes next in their learning • Reflecting on their learning and describe the processes that have taken – using

metalanguage and mathematical vocabulary • Maintaining their attention and focus for longer periods of time in order to gain

a better understanding• Noticing themselves achieving new understandings through “A-ha” or “Wow!”

moments and they are interested in sharing these with others • Knowing their own strengths and weaknesses • Persisting in their learning instead of giving up and declaring “I don’t know how

to”

Five Main Indicators for Resilience Growth mindset – after building a complex robot first that wouldn’t stay together, Hope

decided to rethink her construction and designed a simpler model.

Meta-cognition – during reflections of the maths learning a student wrote on a post-it note that they could figure out where to place numbers on a number line between 0 and 1 but couldn’t go past one. They identified that they would have to explore this tomorrow, highlighting different ways that they could do this.

Student responses during reflection to describe what they did or didn’t understand and how they worked.

Adaptability – understanding that mathematics is interrelated and that knowledge in one area is useful and required in another.

When sorting Hope first arranged her bears in colour groups only. She reflected on this and

rearranged her bears in sub-groups according to size as well as colour. This broke the bears into

smaller groups, which made is possible to estimate at a glance the group that had more.

When sorting ,Cayleb first arranged his blocks in random order and found it difficult to tell which was

the largest amount. He reflected on this and rearranged his blocks in ascending order and found it easier to determine the size of the groupings. We often use the terminology “have I seen something

like this before? What worked and what didn’t work?”

Interpersonal – Developing and valuing working relationships with their peers. When problem solving students are encouraged to seek the help of their peers and work alongside different people in group situations rather than independently. Majority of students thrive in these groupings due to their conversations about learning and working problems out together.

“Uh oh” moment. Alexander realised that Fadia wasn’t counting one to one. He suggested that she ‘make a line’ so that her amount of fences could match his.

Resilience strategies: Trying another idea, teaching someone else.

Sense of purpose – Before learning about fractions, decimals and percentages students brainstormed and gathered information about where we use these in our lives and continued to add to their ideas as they came across examples. Students had to create a plan of a robot for their partner to construct. Their plans had to be informative and descriptive enough for their friend to understand.

Fractions, decimals and percents brainstorm

Picture of a house

How the classroom supports this • Discovering new information for themselves that are connected to reality • Problem solving situations• Primary Years: Students are allowed the opportunity to decide which

processes they will take, what materials they will use, where they will work and with who, how they will record and explain their discoveries.

• Junior Primary Years: Open ended process where students have a choice of materials but the possible strategies are modelled and students are guided through their problem solving. The language is explicitly used and taught throughout the thinking process.

• Results are not the key focus, rather than the process taken. Reflections are focused on not necessarily their ‘answers’ but the strategies they used, obstacles they faced and overcame and what they could try next time.

• Mathematical discoveries are celebrated daily and students are experiencing fun while learning. They are given the opportunity to be mathematical, without worrying whether or not their answers are correct.

• Strategies are explicitly spoken about and other people’s ways of working out are considered and shared and at times even copied.

Language for Resilience Resilient strategies used when problem solving

Keep tryingAsk a questionWork with a friend Try all ideasMake a model Use concrete materialsBreak it into smaller partsDraw a picture or a graphHave I seen something like this before? Guess and check answerMake a list WOW! or Ah-Ha! moment

Feeling pride in their discoveries and learning...celebrating their

achievements

Student video

What resilient indicators can you see? What strategies has the student used when problem solving?