Creative Collaboration: Why is it important to learn maths in schools - Evelyn, Tiare, Saruja and Tim

Saruja, Tim, Evelyn and Taire worked collaboratively on this video. It tells why maths is important at school. They think maths is very important at school because when they get older they'll need to know their maths.

Student Leader Nominees

Congratulations to all the Year 7 students nominated to be leaders next year. 

30 kms to Tonga?

Fine, Samantha and Shantay collaborated to create this awesome i-movie that shows why learning maths at school is so important. They used comedy to get a very important message across. Great work girls!

Maths Animations

This is my presentation about why I think it is important to learn maths in school. I collaborated on this presentation with one of my classmates, Manu. We used the ruler as our characters to make it more interesting. We think that this is a very cool way of telling people why Maths is important at school.

Master of Maths!

Today for maths we were challenged to make a DLO that explained why we think it's important to learn Maths in school. We were allowed to use anything to make this DLO. My group decided to make a movie. The movie is about me helping my friend learn maths skills. Latham, John and I were collaboratively to get our message across

Teaching the Teacher!

Today San Tat and Manu showed me how to use animations in google slides. These boys were great teachers and their instructions were really clear. Thank you to Paige who took the photo.

Problem solving explained by Saruja

As part of our Maths Quick Writes, we wrote a paragraph about Problem solving. This activity includes both maths and writing. This activity helps us to explain what we were doing and also will help us to explain what is problem solving. The tasked helped us a lot to use Rm 5 rubric and work with a critical friends to give a feedback each other. 

Problem solving explained by Sebastian

What is Problem Solving?

Does it only happen in maths?

What is problem solving? Do you know? This is a simple question that nearly every year 7 and 8 can answer this. It’s simply when you are trying to figure out an answer to whatever problem you are solving. For example, when you are given an equation to solve, you usually find the numbers you are working with then you use the best strategy to answer your question. Then when you have your answer and it’s correct, you have just done problem solving.

When problem solving you are working out an solution to your problem and at the same time you are developing your maths knowledge and skills. There won’t usually be a answer or hint there for you, that's why problem solving is one of the most important parts and aspects of doing mathematics.

Not only in maths problem solving can be used, but also in our daily lives. Like when you need to figure how much time there is until you need to do something else. As Well as detectives and when they try to solve the mystery crime or find a solution to who had done it. There is many other problem solving in our lives.

Today for our Maths Quick Writes, room 5 all looked at one question. What is problem solving? Does it only happen in math? Our task was to answer these questions and write and explain about these two questions. We were learning to understand more about maths language because we weren't very good with it.We used the the Rm 5 and 6 rubric and a critical friend to help us with our paragraphs.

Problem Solving explained by San Tat

What is problem solving? Does it only happen in Maths?

Problem solving is when you are finding out numbers or an answer. When you are finding out an answer you have to have a strategy, so that you can explain it. When you are solving a problem you are explaining a strategy and finding out the answer. You need to have a strategy before you find out an answer. When you are solving a problem it doesn't only happen in maths it also happens in school, shops, work and sometimes at home.

Today for writing we had a 20 minutes maths quick write, We did this to give a clear explanation about problem solving. This helped us have a proper understanding of how to write a paragraph about problem solving. This can also help us to develop our knowledge in maths.

Problem Solving explained by Evelyn

Does solving maths problem only happen in Maths?

Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. Solving maths problem can not just happen in maths it can happen outside the bubble.

When you are at a shop and you needed to calculate up your supplies altogether. You can find a solution to help you figure out what the problem or you can use maths language like if I should add up my groceries, should I subtract my groceries, or should I multiple my groceries.

Sometimes people figure out the answer just like that but likely sometimes the answer can be wrong that when you're adding up number in your head or something you can lose count or lose your solution. Rather than finding out the answer it also about using a strategy that is helpful or explain out the problem.

This is my problem solving, I had to show my thinking and my opinion if solving maths problems only happen's in maths. My answer was No because we do maths in school but solving maths problems can happen outside the bubble like where you go that maybe involves numbers like when you are adding, subtracting, or multiplying the price up together.I have worked collaboratively with my partner Jasmine. We had to comment on each other's slide to give them feedback and advice.

Problem Solving explained by Zeba

What is problem solving and does it only happen in maths?

Problem solving can be used everywhere not just in maths, for example if your trying to earn pocket money, so you try to do different things such as chores. Problem solving is when you are going through the process to find a solution ( answer). Problem solving can be used in maths by writing down your strategy or explaining. When you are problem solving not always the first solution will work. You would be going through different strategies to find the right answer for your question. Overall  problem solving is used in daily life and is very useful

As part of our maths quick writes we wrote a paragraph about problem solving this activity combined both maths and writing. This helps us so that whenever we do a written test that needs us to explain our strategy and show our thinking. This task helped us in writing as we used our rubric and worked with a critical friend to help us structure a paragraph. 

PBS' Flag Vote Results by Paige

Today we had a school vote based on which flag we would want the flag to be changed to. Every student in our school had a chance to choose which flag they wanted. Mr. Johnston shared the results with us today. I have made a pie chart showcasing all the results with percentages. In my opinion, the results were very interesting especially the Black and White Koru which is only 4 percent out of 100. I would have expected a much higher result with that particular flag. 

Making an informed choice

Today we had a PBS vote to see which flag we think should be chosen. Each class went to the polling booth and placed a counter in the bucket under the flag they liked the best. Before we could make a decision Room 5 need to have some facts so that the choice they made was informed (made because they knew the story behind each flag). To do this we used 4 -3 -2 -1 to help us gather our own thoughts, share our thinking and listen to the thinking of others. To help us make connections to this topic we created a list of reasons why we would not choose a flag, then used these reasons to collaboratively write an 'up to 50 word' paragraph that explained this.

The Silver Fern Red was the most popular choice in our class, with the Silver Fern Black coming second. This was because my students felt these flags would be recognisable around the world, they had strong connections to New Zealand's history and could see links to their own and other cultures. 

Which flag would you choose?

Building connections in Maths

We spent some time this week looking at how asking questions can help our learning. Below is the list of our own Room 5 'crowd sourced' examples. Our next step is to create a display that encourages questioning during learning time.

What questions that you have asked, or heard someone else ask that have helped you in maths?

• 
  
• Don’t be scared to come up and ask for extra help?
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions?
• Can you explain your thinking ?
• Do you know what that is.
• Do you get what I mean?
• What strategy should I use?
• Can you say it in a easier way so I can understand?
• Can you help me?
• Do you want be to explain in more detail?
• Does this make sense to you?
• Do you need help?
• What strategy should I use?
• Are there any maths game to help me?
• Is there a website we can practise on?
• Is there a different way to solve this?
• Does this strategy work for me ?
• Is this strategy work with bigger numbers?
• Do you understand now?
• Can you show me an example.
• What is the best strategy to use to find the answer to this question?
• Does this strategy work for me.
• Can you break the strategy down for me?
• How did you use your strategy?
• Do you know how to solve this?