The students really enjoyed the basic facts challenges on our Google Forms last term (see previous post for more details). The competition aspect of wanting to move up the levels proved to be a hit and was great motivation to get them trying again and again! I did find that a few students who were starting to struggle at the higher levels were losing motivation and I feel this may have been down to their strategies not being high enough for the questions...
From this I realised, how although I wanted to have a big push in students' knowledge, I also needed them to maintain their knowledge of strategies. Therefore, I am going to include a daily recap of strategies they can use as part of our calendar maths. At the moment, I plan to have a daily question which we will solve as a class in a variety of ways with different strategies. Funnily enough at the photocopier this morning were a stack of strategy posters, which I was able to locate after a quick Google search (link to them here) and am now in the process of popping up on the wall as reference for the class.
Reflecting on my inquiry last term made me realised how hand-in-hand both knowledge and strategy go, and the importance of ensuring students are maintaining and practising these both as often as possible!
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