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Improving
outcomes in Numeracy: The INISSS Project
'Teach
what you want known'
The
context
The
process
The resources
The results
This material is about the 'Improving Numeracy for Indigenous
Secondary School Students' (INISSS) project conducted through
the Aboriginal Education Unit of the Tasmanian Department
of Education — Vicky Nicholson, the project officer.
It
is drawn from interviews with Vicky and Rosemary Callingham
(University of Tasmania) who together with Ian Smith (Rose
Bay HS) were project facilitators. Other comments come from
a professional development presentation given in Hobart in
May 2001 by seven teachers (including Ian) and a parent who
were involved in INISSS and a related program for primary
schools, 'Changing Places: Building better schools'. Ian also
generously provided notes from a presentation made to teachers
in Adelaide in July, 2001.
The
context
The
INISSS program was a Tasmanian Departmental initiative mounted
in response to Indigenous students' poor numeracy achievement
in statewide testing in 1997. The Year 9 numeracy assessment
and monitoring program showed that 50.65% of Indigenous students
were working at or above Year 8 Key Indicators of Numeracy
Outcomes (KINOs), compared to 70.6% of non-Indigenous students.
The
goal of the program was to improve the numeracy outcomes of
all students involved, but particularly those of Indigenous
students — to close the 'gap' between the achievement
levels of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. |
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The
process
The
key
 If
we're going to improve that situation we're going to have
to change our teaching methodology … and how the hell do we
do that?
(Ian Smith)
Professional
development
The
program provided professional development to 40 teachers and
Aboriginal Education Workers in 19 project schools. The professional
development aimed to develop teachers' skills in teaching
for numeracy in ways that appeared to support Indigenous students'
learning. These included small group work and practical investigations.
To support this, Task Centre materials were used that had
been developed in collaboration with Indigenous communities
in Queensland (Williams 1997).
The
professional development focussing on improving pedagogy was
provided at two-day residential sessions as well as single
days over the course of a year. At each professional development
session teachers undertook to trial some aspect of new teaching
methodology in their classrooms, and then report on the outcomes
at the next session.
Programs
always included an activity to enhance participants' knowledge
and understanding of Indigenous culture, practice with Task
Centre activities, development and trialing of assessment
tasks, a 'show and tell' focused on the outcomes of recent
teaching experiences coupled with a great deal of group interaction
and team building.
I
think it's really important that the people who came to
the professional development programs were absolutely involved
in the process of learning and that we modelled the learning
and assessment tasks in ways that got people involved and
investigating new things. They were learning, and in a position
that kids are often put into. They didn't necessarily know
the answers and they had to go about working out how to
do that among themselves.
Nobody was expected to work on their
own, we worked in groups, in pairs, and as teams. The idea
was to have a lot of fun and to be curious about the outcomes
rather than worry about whether we're good enough.
The people who came [teachers, parents,
project officers and supporters] worked in completely mixed
ability groups. It just didn't matter what people's perceived
mathematical knowledge was. As a result we ended up with
some really successful outcomes, just within the actual
PD programs themselves, because you see that everybody has
got something to offer.
(Vicky Nicholson)
Participants
at the inservice day in Hobart. Vicky Nicholson is on the
right.
Read
about teachers' reactions to the project... |
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The
resources
As mentioned one of the main vehicles for change was the use
of the Mathematics Task Centre materials developed by a team
led by Doug Williams for Curriculum Corporation.
Read
about the Mathematics Task Centre Materials…
Some of the features of these tasks are that they are intended
to activate concrete and visual learning and involve significant
challenge. A good task has multiple levels of success and
multiple entry and exit points, while balancing skill and
process outcomes. The tasks are also intended to have three
'lives' — for a 10 minute challenge, a whole class lesson
and an extended investigation. They are designed to encourage
high levels of access and engagement and to diminish the 'trepidation'
factor.
We
were very lucky very early on in our project to pull Doug
Williams in. He had been working with the Task Centre idea
of teaching mathematics, with materials that had been specifically
trialed with Aboriginal kids in the Northern Territory and
Queensland. That was a big plus, and in a sense he almost
was able to answer our question for us very early on —
that by changing our way of operation we can engage Indigenous
kids much more readily.
The tasks that we used are basically
tasks which can be done on three levels —
with kids working in pairs, on their own or as a whole class.
They go from actually solving the problem to generalising
the problem and then at a third level to investigate the
problem at a much deeper level.
One of the things about all of these
tasks which is really important is that they have this sort
of depth. We've coined the term, 'iceberg'. You have a task
you can see you can do, but underneath it is this wealth
of richness of mathematics and numeracy. That is what has
set these tasks apart from some other ones which include
manipulative materials, but provide fairly shallow type
activities.
I was intrigued with this because it
gelled with what I had been trying to do in my own inadequate
way for the last 30 odd years, and it's given a new dimension
to my teaching. I was able to take these ideas, put them
together with my own past practice, slot it into that kind
of mode and my teaching pattern changed.
(Ian Smith)
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The
results
The results in the table below reflect three periods of testing
of approximately 2000 Year 8 and subsequently Year 9 students,
with about 18 months separating the beginning and end points.
The professional development occurred in the first 12 of those
months.
The
results from INISSS were reported to schools against levels
of a generalised learning sequence.
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A1 |
A2 |
A3 |
| |
Non-Indigenous |
Indigenous |
Non-Indigenous |
Indigenous |
Non-Indigenous |
Indigenous |
| LEVEL
1 |
3.11% |
5.94% |
1.68% |
1.99% |
0.44% |
0.55% |
| LEVEL
2 |
7.09% |
10.96% |
4.03% |
5.97% |
2.05% |
3.31% |
| LEVEL
3 |
12.55% |
18.26% |
8.46% |
13.43% |
4.03% |
6.08% |
| LEVEL
4 |
17.28% |
17.81% |
12.82% |
17.41% |
12.09% |
14.92% |
| LEVEL
5 |
15.60% |
15.53% |
13.02% |
13.93% |
10.99% |
11.60% |
| LEVEL
6 |
32.94% |
21.46% |
41.95% |
33.83% |
58.53% |
57.46% |
| LEVEL
7 |
9.94% |
9.59% |
16.11% |
12.44% |
10.26% |
6.08% |
| LEVEL
8 |
1.49% |
0.46% |
1.95% |
1.00% |
1.61% |
0.00% |
At
the first assessment (A1), it was clear that although there
were some Aboriginal students achieving well, over 53% of
the Aboriginal students were located in levels 1 to 4, compared
with 40% of the non-Aboriginal students. The gap was in the
order of 13 percentage points.
By
the third assessment (A3), the percentage of Aboriginal students
in levels 1 to 4 had dropped to around 25%, compared with
19% of non-Aboriginal students. The gap was reduced to 6 percentage
points.
This
result suggests that the INISSS program had met its intended
outcome of improving numeracy for all students, but particularly
for Indigenous students and even more particularly for female
Indigenous students whose performance on the final test was
very nearly equivalent to that of non-Indigenous students.
Rosemary
Callingham, on the left, and Ian Smith
with Carol Beasley
Patrick
Griffin and Rosemary Callingham designed an assessment process
to go with the INISSS work... |
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