Maths- PD- Wendy Dent

After reading the Boaler book it was great to get the opportunity to attend the Wendy Dent Workshop.  I had been questioning how this looks in the classroom and how they manage the programme. She shared some results indicating that the children's national standard results improved by using this approach to maths, for at least the older children.
I agree that maths talk is important and it really does improve the depth of the children's understanding. While observing at the school it was clear that there had been some guidelines set with children in how to work with their math buddy. There were posters and reflective questions that were used to guide the math sessions.
The children were in pairs mainly on our observations which I thought did allow the children to confidently share their math thinking and not get lost in a group. I liked when children shared their work and they had set it so that one speaks and the other child writes. Hopefully by doing it this way will ensure that each child has the opportunty to both be heard.
From attending this workshop I plan to work on giving the children more opportunities to experience working with someone of a different ability on a word problem. I need to work hard on setting up systems with children sharing and asking questions some of the posters and reflective questions will help.
I found that this school on whole teach by this problem solving way. However some classes appeared to have worked on some aspects of maths and had teaching moments. You would need to do this I think as the children would be limited to the strategies they could use if they didn't know them.