World Teachers’ Day – Former PE teacher, Bec Thomas wants to ensure maths teaching supports peak performance, writes Jennifer Connell.
Bec Thomas knows a bit about fitness. But these days the former Physical Education teacher says her focus is on ensuring teaching methods are fit for purpose and producing stronger results for high school Mathematics students.
“What we found was we’d teach a concept, then ask students a bunch of simple and repetitive questions based on that concept, but it wasn’t working,” said Bec, an instructional leader at Hunter River High School in Port Stephens.
Bec moved across to teaching Mathematics 10 years ago: “I was looking for permanency and was struggling to find consistent work as a PE-trained teacher. I had an amazing maths teacher in Year 11 and 12 who motivated and enthused me and really helped me to understand maths’ beauty. Of all the senior key learning areas, maths was up there with Personal Development, Health and Physical Education as my favourite subject, so it was an easy decision to retrain in a subject I enjoyed and knew there was demand for,” Bec said.
Around 20% of students are Aboriginal at her school, located in the Port Stephens coastal locality. As the maths faculty tries new research-based teaching methods, teachers conduct regular impact assessments with students to discover what is and isn’t getting results.
New teaching models, including mathematical processes and purposeful practice, have recently been rolled out.
“Teachers are encouraged to modify their pedagogy to ensure student engagement is enhanced, so all students feel a sense of success. We’ve achieved this by exposing staff to sustained, ongoing professional learning in faculty meetings and presenting this research-based teaching activity into their classrooms,” said Bec, who participates in the Department of Education’s Embedded Instructional Leader Pathway, a component of the Mathematics Growth Team.
Over the course of the next fortnight, the faculty staff will discuss what worked and what could be enhanced in the future.
“Rather than solving maths problems by asking question after question, we change the questioning and resources we were using to learn the same concept. It encourages discussion.
“Data has shown student engagement improved greatly. They were really enjoying what they were doing, which then translates into stronger results.”
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