Visual for Working Mathematically Proficiencies
- Ebonie
- Apr 6, 2019
- 2 min read
Imagine you have been hired by a curriculum authority to create a new visual that represents the Working Mathematically Proficiencies. Upload your image/drawing to your journal platform. Reflect on its use as a classroom teacher. Support your
ideas with literature.
When creating a visual that needed to represent the working mathematically proficiencies, I first thought to myself, what was I going to focus on (just one stage or a whole?) and what exactly are the working mathematically proficiencies? When researching I came across Hogans text regarding mathematics and numeracy in Australia. He states that:
“In order to help students deal with the mathematics in ‘the world’ and to help them deal with ‘not knowing’, ... a greater emphasis is required in school mathematics on the proficiencies that constitute ‘doing mathematics’, including reasoning and problem solving.” (Hogan, 2012, p7)
Therefore, I began to look at the NESA syllabus for K-6 mathematics and see if they had anything similar to what Hogan (2012) was suggesting. NESA’s outcomes for Working Mathematically seem to compliment Hogan's suggestion quite well. The three outcomes include:
Communicating
Reasoning
Problem solving
And so I decided to create a chart that clearly showed what these proficiencies were and what were the outcomes related to them. The second problem I faced was whether I wrote the outcomes for all stages or just one. In the end I decided to just do one stage as a teacher of that grade can have a clear outline to the proficiencies and won't be confused or accidentally mix up the stage their in with a higher stage for example.
As a classroom teacher, it is important to incorporate and model ever lesson (or as many as possible) to a syllabus outcome, to make sure the students are achieving what is expected. The simple design of the circles is inspired by other diagrams in the K-6 NESA syllabus, especially the Science and Technology syllabus. I didn't want to complicate or clutter the image so i decided to use neutral colours that aren't too harsh on the eye.
According to NESA (2012)
“Teachers are able to extend students’ level of proficiency in relation to the components of Working Mathematically by creating opportunities for their development through the learning experiences that they design.” (p 37)
Therefore, by designing something that will aid teachers, students will be extended even further.
References:
Hogan, J. (2012).Mathematics and numeracy: has anything changed? Are we any clearer? Are we on track?. Australian Mathematics Teacher. 68.4 (Winter 2012).
NESA (2012) Mathematics K–10 Syllabus. Board of Studies NSW. Retrieved from: https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/mathematics/mathematics-k-10
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