Maths with Jo Boaler - Limitless: Learn, Lead and Live without Barriers

Last week I travelled to Hamilton with my teaching colleagues to see Jo Boaler, an educator in Maths teaching. Jo has done lots of work with Stanford University including creating a website called Youcubed which focuses on reducing anxiety around maths. 

Jo Boaler started her presentation talking about anxiety around maths. Maths anxiety affects around 30-50% of children. To be honest as a child maths wasn't my favourite part of school and looking back now, I myself had anxiety around maths. Jo stated the importance of having a good understanding of growth mindset before getting into maths knowledge and strategies. 

Below are the six main areas that Jo believes need to be considered when teaching maths; 
Brain Growth & Change 
Students need to be exposed to how they learn and what is happening in their brains. 

• New brain pathways are created 
• Strengthen pathway 
• Connections are made between pathways.  

Mindsets 
It is important to understand that what children believe effects their learning. Teachers and students need a growth mindset, using fixed language (If you tell a child they are smart and then they got something wrong, the child then evaluates themselves thinking they aren’t so smart (Carol Dweck)

Struggle & Mistakes 
The best time for our brains is when we are pushing at the edge of our understanding and making mistakes and correcting them. The steps of struggle, The learning pit (Jennifer Schaefer) Value children saying they are in the pit. Teachers shouldn’t jump in and help straight away tell children its good to struggle for the brain. Explore the learning pit with children so they understand it's a good thing if they get in the 'pit'. 

Engage with content with a lens of multiplicity  
This is about thinking of maths in a creative way using numbers, words, pictures ect. Approaching math’s with creativity and knowing that there are lots of answers and different ways to solve a problem. 

Flexibility & Depth – over speed
Maths is not about speed. When children are anxious their working brain shuts down. Engaging in math’s facts visually and in different ways connecting things all together means  higher achievement and flexible thinking

Connections & Collaboration – Connecting with other peoples ideas creates understanding and deeper thinking.

• Math’s is about ideas and creativity not right and wrong answers
• Best time to teach a method is after they need to encounter the method.

    What next in Kakano?

•     Flexible groupings to attend the needs of children and to fill up gaps
•     Problem solving problems to be put in the challenge room 
•     Strand to taught through problem solving 
•     Exploring the learning pit 
•     Use growth mindset language 
•     Make maths more creative 

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