A Sea Change in Maths Teaching

Maths is a challenging subject for both teachers and students, students can find its abstract nature overwhelming and teachers, if you can find them, struggle to motivate and engage the kids.

Many strategies have been tried, many have failed but Coffs Harbour-based Holly Wedd seems to have found a research and evidence-based approach to teaching maths that’s kicking goals. She is also creating a pro maths movement in her school that’s changing the way students think about the subject which is steadily spreading in the region.

Holly has only been at Orara High School in Coffs for a short time, taking up the role of Head Teacher of Mathematics, but has quickly made her presence felt.

“I have drastically changed the way we approach both teaching mathematics and assessing our students. As a faculty, we have moved almost entirely away from using textbooks and towards utilising vertical whiteboards, hands-on resources and open middle style questioning," she says.

“We have begun recording our lessons to assist us with better analysing the micro-movements within the classroom and identifying areas needing improvement. We have increased chunking in our lessons to decrease the cognitive load our students are faced with on a lesson-by-lesson basis, changed assessments to decrease mathematical anxiety and are in the process of ensuring all mathematics classrooms are ‘thinking classrooms’ in line with Peter Liljedahl's research.”

Facilitating faculty discussions on how aspects of the research could be integrated effectively into classrooms and teaching methods has been essential to the program’s success.

“I am incredibly lucky to have such a fantastic faculty at Orara, they have all been more than willing to jump on board with big changes in a relatively short space of time. As a group, we intend to continue this trajectory and increase student engagement and outcomes as a result,” she says.

A big problem with maths is that the students can see it as being dry, devoid of the creativity and colour that are associated with other subjects. Holly has set about changing that idea and The Annual Mathematics Olympics is one of Holly’s initiatives that is enlivening the subject.

“The Mathematics Olympics was an idea born from a desire to show students that Maths could be fun, exciting and engaging. I saw other subjects taking students on all sorts of excursions, inspiring them to want to learn and engaging them in the process and I wanted to recreate that mindset in Mathematics. To move students away from the anxiety that all too often seems to surround mathematics and show them a different way to learn. This is an ongoing endeavour which has gained traction with schools across the Coffs Harbour and Clarence Valley regions.

“The Coffs Harbour and Clarence Valley region is a tight-knit teaching community, I know many of the head teachers from other high schools around personally and have been able to share with them the excitement and engagement which had come from running this program in my own school. They have been eager to jump on board - I aim to continue the spread of this program in the coming years beyond the Coffs Clarence region.”

Attracting maths teachers can also be difficult and by supporting early career teachers to take up the subject, the pipeline of young, motivated maths teachers is being firmed up. The MANSW Beginner Teacher group is dedicated to supporting teachers in their first five years of teaching or those teaching out of field.

She says, “It can be intimidating for new teachers to admit the things they are struggling with to their immediate peers at work or in a space where veteran teachers may not be having the same disciplinary or organisational issues in their own classrooms - this group aims to create a safe space where teachers can seek advice on those sorts of topics and build their confidence both in the classroom and with unfamiliar content they may be teaching for the first time.

“We have recently rebranded the group and are now the MANSW Early Career Teachers Group. We host teach meets each term dedicated to sharing resources, teaching suggestions and behaviour management strategies to the 250 teachers currently in this group.”

Encouraging a shift in how students see maths and experience it has ushered in real change among them, they’re less fearful of the subject and that liberates them to dive in and try new, even challenging mathematical problems.

“I think bringing in an element of competition, excitement about mathematics and engagement has immensely positive effects for students. We have developed a growth mindset in students and really challenged them to push beyond their boundaries and try new and different ways to learn mathematics. This program has also developed resilience in many of the students who participated which has spread over into their everyday lessons. They are more willing to attempt unfamiliar questions and engage with a range of alternate activities which develop a deep understanding of the lesson content,” Holly says.

“The changes in students who participated in this program have been immensely positive. Students were more willing to work in teams during class time, were more willing to attempt unfamiliar questions and were far more willing to engage with their peers to work through a problem rather than simply giving up because ‘it does not look like the others’.

“I think the Mathematics Olympics has had a double effect on students - because many of the questions were open-ended or had more than one correct answer, students realised that there is not always one 'correct’ way of doing things, that it is ok to not get the answer and simultaneously that working as a team and supporting their fellow students could make maths exciting, fun and totally different to what they had previously seen in the classroom.”

Changing a school’s culture around maths means trying new things and staff need to challenge themselves to think outside of the box and experiment.

“Don't be scared to step outside your comfort zone! Changing the way you teach can be intimidating and will often feel like you are losing control of your classroom, the trick is to balance relinquishing a small part of the control to your students with engagement, positivity and excitement towards mathematics. Read research to help make this happen. Reach out to your peers in other schools and ask what they are doing differently. It's a combination of things that will help change the way your students are feeling about mathematics but it can be done effectively if you commit to making consistent small changes to your practice,” she says.

Holly was one of four winners at the Commonwealth Bank and Australian Schools Plus 2022 Teaching Awards. Nominations for this year’s awards are now open and the awards are generous, offering winners a Teaching Fellowship valued at $40,000, including $25,000 for a strategic school project and a 12-month professional learning program. Ten early career teachers with the potential to make a positive impact in education, will receive an ECT Scholarship valued at $10,000, including $5,000 for professional development and an exclusive learning and mentoring program.

“Winning this award has been fantastic for me, I have had the privilege of working with a personal Instructional Coach who has assisted me with developing my leadership capacity within my new role.

“I have utilised the funds from winning this award to attend the Mathematics Association of NSW Leadership Program in Canberra which was a fantastic opportunity to develop relationships with other middle leaders in schools across NSW who are often faced with the same situations I am. This program allowed me the opportunity to reflect on not only my teaching practice, by my leadership style as well.

“The remaining funds I have used to purchase a professional development library for my faculty to ensure we have the research and resources required to continue to improve the way mathematics is being taught at Orara High,” says Wedd.