Improving outcomes in mathematics education: A best evidence in action exemplar
2. How Takanini optimised professional development expertise
Introduction/Whakataki
24 August 2023
This best evidence in action feature highlights the large achievement gains in mathematics across class levels at Takanini School, and the leadership, professional development, and pedagogical practices that enabled such impact.
‘I’ve never seen any other PD in other areas that has given such a lift. I mean we had a long way to go but to see that within two years; it is actually astounding.’
Jayne Senington, Deputy Principal, Takanini School
External expertise
This best evidence in action feature highlights the extraordinary impact of the DMIC professional change expertise of Mary Rahiti. Mary Rahiti is an experienced teacher and former Deputy and Acting Principal who has a Master of Educational Leadership and Management. Her doctoral study is focussed on optimal practices for effective school leadership in implementing evidence-based projects and she brings an indigenous and inclusive leadership perspective to her development support.
Mary Rahiti is one of the DMIC Mentors trained by the multi-award-winning Massey University expert leaders of the DMIC implementation support: Professor Roberta and Professor Jodie Hunter.
‘The quality of professional education and mentorship led by Dr Bobbie Hunter and Dr Jodie Hunter and their team from Massey University serves as an international exemplar of the highest quality. Importantly, this work is not ‘an intervention, it is a reinvention of pedagogy.’
Professor Elham Kazemi[1]
The DMIC evidence-based inclusive change model has been one of the rare examples of professional development that when funded to wider scale (in a project the Ministry of Education targeted to Pacific learners with reach from 3 to 72 schools), has been associated with an early national lift in achievement for Pacific learners[2],[3].
The research and development underpinning DMIC has been made possible by successive awards[4] to Professors Roberta and Jodie Hunter. Through ongoing collaborative research and development they have enabled an evidence-based, improvement science approach to transformative change to wider scale. Massey University now has 45 DMIC Mentors.
Culturally responsive, culturally sustaining transformation
The critical success of the high impact of DMIC is the intensive support for teachers and leaders informed by evidence about the ‘how’ of transformative change. Making educationally powerful connections with the lives and experiences of ākonga and their parents and whānau is at the heart of the change work.
Māori and Pacific cultural and whānau values have been critical to the ‘how’ of classroom and group discourse. These are not a matter of lip service. Children and teachers build on whānau values to enable respectful listening, wait-time, turn taking, responding, and productive collective collaboration. DMIC professional development supports teachers with strategies such as ‘rules of talk’ that give effect to these socio- mathematical norms, that build ākonga sense of wellbeing and belonging.
DMIC Co-Leader Dr Generosa Leach explains:
‘Through their lengthy and extensive research, (Professors Roberta Hunter and Jodie Hunter) illustrated how teachers could support Māori and Pāsifika students to learn mathematics by engaging in collective mathematical discourse. They showed how teachers modified their mathematics learning environments to respectfully draw on the core cultural values of Māori and Pāsifika students, including reciprocity, respect, service, inclusion, family, relationships, collectivism, and belonging.[5]
DMIC gives practical effect to such values in ways that decrease bullying; and increase confidence, sense of belonging and achievement.
Giving practical effect to Tiriti o Waitangi has been a priority across DMIC implementations. See, for example, a Ngāi Tahu bequested implementation Hangaia te Urupounamu Pāngarau Mō Tātou | Education Counts.
The new generation of Pacific and indigenous mentors and teacher leaders such as Mary Rahiti and Jarrod Pihama show us the way forward.
DMIC uses Low Floor High Ceiling Tasks. These tasks are designed to enable students to learn in collaborative mixed ability groups. Students are given the tasks at the expected level for their year. These tasks are designed with multiple entry and exit points to cater for a range of capabilities; to cater for all learners. This pedagogical approach supports teachers’ high expectations that all students can access the mathematics inherent in the tasks.
Teachers are supported to make cultural contexts and connections core to the pedagogy and responsive to ākonga in any setting.
The Deputy Principal at Takanini reports that they have taken on board the strategy that the mathematical tasks are contextualised to the lives and experiences of the children. They include children’s names and experiences in the maths problems themselves. In this way, mathematical contexts relevant to the children’s own real-life experiences make meaningful the learning; and afford mana to the children’s identities.
Educationally powerful connections with whānau
DMIC creates educationally powerful connections to the lives and experiences of children and their whānau. The funds of knowledge of families and whānau become a resource in this strengths-based approach.
DMIC affords priority to engaging with parents and whānau so that they are placed to understand and support their children’s learning through the DMIC pedagogy. In the case of Takanini School, Mary Rahiti has supported school leaders to leverage the potential impact of including whānau through DMIC whānau workshops and/or DMIC holiday programmes.
Takanini School participated in the DMIC offerings of a free week-long STEM (Science, Mathematics, Technology and Engineering) school holiday programme supporting whānau and children with a range of activities including coding and robotics. Takanini teachers have used the opportunity to attend, watch and learn from the ways in which DMIC Mentors are engaging whānau and ākonga in mathematics.
Multiple professional learning supports
Along with in-person professional development workshops and ongoing access to webinars to build pedagogical and subject knowledge, DMIC provides support for deep change in teacher practice.
DMIC supports the whole staff through a careful process of preparation, collaboration, planning and review. In a DMIC Annual Report to the Ministry of Education, Professor Jodie Hunter noted that in 2020 teachers had experienced ongoing difficulty in planning and developing appropriately challenging mathematical tasks.
Additional professional supports such as structured planning workshops were introduced in 2021.These workshops supported teachers to delve into big mathematical ideas within the strands, and across units of work, deepen their content knowledge and pedagogical growth and anticipate ways their students may solve the tasks across capabilities within their classes and teams.
Principal Margaret Aikman saw early on that a co-planning approach would be critical for success at a school-wide level. Takanini teachers themselves work through the mathematics problems, co-plan lessons, predict misconceptions, co-teach and review progress in ways that inform ongoing improvement.
‘Part of the thing with DMIC is that you have these (mathematics) problems but you as a teacher need to solve them before you teach them, so you have to anticipate what the students may do…Because you have to solve the problem, you yourself are gaining a much better understanding of the maths involved.
Natalie Wright, Years 7 & 8 Team Leader
In-class mentoring
DMIC Mentors recognise that mathematics anxiety is a challenge for many teachers. In-class mentors support teachers in ways that build relational trust. DMIC Mentor, Mary Rahiti explains:
‘A key feature in working alongside leaders is the understanding that as a Mentor you are working alongside every kaiako and their journey, helping kaiako feel safe, confident in their practice. We have at times a very short window to develop then build on a relationship where a kaiako is safe to trust and be honest with us about an area of their practice that to a lot of educators is very daunting and is a cause of anxiety - mathematics.When we can get into a vā of honest and trusting Talanoa, professional learning and development can shine.’
The DMIC in-class mentor has a crucial and constructive role in supporting teachers to change a range of well-intended business-as-usual practices that outcomes-linked evidence reveals to have negative effects on children's learning (e.g. labelling, sorting, ability grouping, reducing opportunity to learn, providing insufficient mathematical challenge, leaving silent, and "othering"). Such change starts from the first in-class session. The 'pause' in classroom practice is the point of dissonance, reflection and change. The ‘pause’ can be called by the Mentor or the class teacher.
Takanini Principal, Margaret Aikman, explains:
‘The Mentor, to me, is the critical bridge between the theory and practice… a major success of this project has been the DMIC Mentors.’
It is the in-class mentoring that enables the deep changes in practice. In-class mentoring is more hands-on support for the teacher, including pausing the lesson, providing feedback, and supporting the teacher to try a different approach. Lessons are videoed to enable sharing and reflecting on the pedagogical change with teachers.
‘So being in the classroom and being supported by mentors like Mary (Rahiti), our in-class support mentor really puts you in the driver’s seat…having the mentor there with you has been immensely supportive in helping me to be more confident in my own practice as a teacher.’
Jarrod Pihama, Teacher, Maths Lead
‘The biggest difference (in the professional development) is that they act like coaches alongside of you - if they see you going off on the wrong track or if there's something you can improve they will actually stop you in the middle and say “Just pause for a moment” and have a conversation with you and say “Why don't you try this” or “You could ask this question” or “I've noticed that that group over there; they've got a really good solution” and/or “This student here isn't really participating, how could you engage them?” I guess it is more in your face, and it is real time so you can adapt your practice as you go.’
Natalie Wright, Years 7 & 8 Team Leader
‘They (the DMIC Mentors) are working the theory, they’re teaching in classrooms, but they are also giving the leaders in the schools and the teachers the skills they are going to need to embed this in-between their visits’
Margaret Aikman, Principal
Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities Task Booklets
In 2022, Professors Jodie Hunter and Roberta Hunter increased support for teachers and Mentors in the form of Mathematical Task Booklets. These resources provide more structured support to teachers in curriculum progressions.
The new DMIC Mathematical Task booklets have been invaluable for teachers. They support teacher preparation and enable teachers to connect ambitious mathematics to the experiences of their children.
Deputy Principal, Jayne Senington, Takanini School, explains the difference:
‘Previously we would as a team come up with tasks based on the curriculum level but if you’re not experienced in that, it’s quite hard to sometimes pitch it at the correct level to know that is going to be a level four problem…Also the sequencing, so the way that tasks build on each other…each task you do builds on a little bit more knowledge, so the sequencing was difficult. Now we are provided with booklets and they have tasks in them and you can adapt those tasks to your context. You could…change what the context was but the task booklet has the task, it has what the big mathematical concepts are that you are trying to link to, it will have links to the curriculum.’‘…the answers aren’t in there, you have to work out the answer yourself, so you have to anticipate. So as a teacher that means you’re really well prepared because you’ve had to solve it yourself before you do it with your students.’
The Task Booklets are structured for curriculum strands and levels by tasks, big mathematical ideas, curriculum links, learning outcomes, mathematical language, specific strategies for student sharing back/connects, and teacher support notes. The booklets provide further tasks for independent follow-up and next steps.
The Task Booklets, when used with in-person and in-class Mentor support, support teachers to give effect to the complexity and responsiveness of the pedagogy.
Each Teacher Task Booklet addresses specific curriculum strands and includes assessment tasks.
‘When we talk to teachers about let's say fractions or algebra you see a wall go up here and I used to see that here when I first started. Now teachers are asking us “Please can we do more fractions?” “Please can we do more algebra? I'd like to give that a go today because I think I know more about that now” and they are feeling more confident about that because as a matter of fact when teachers were in universities they weren't taught conceptual understandings of all these different strands and this is a time for us to help them as well as the practice.’
Mary Rahiti, DMIC Mentor
School leadership impact on student outcomes
The highest impact on achievement of any leadership practice in the School leadership and student outcomes | He Kura Rangatira Best evidence synthesis was leadership promoting and participating in teacher learning and development.
The approach taken to DMIC by Takanini School is an outstanding example of school leadership promoting and participating in teacher learning and development.
The collaborative approaches taken by leadership and staff across Takanini School demonstrate Professor John Hattie’s meta-analytic finding that collective teacher efficacy has an exceptionally high impact. With an effect size of d=1.57 Collective Teacher Efficacy is strongly correlated with student achievement.
Distributed school leadership for deep pedagogical change
Principal Margaret Aikman explains the criticality of the DMIC Mentors to the development support needed by the school leadership team:
‘This can’t just be a Mentor coming in once or twice a term. The school has clear responsibilities between those Mentor visits. We need to make sure there is follow up after the Mentor’s been in. We talk to the teacher and say “How did it go?” “How do you feel?” and “What do think you need support with before they return?”’
Takanini interviews provide valuable insight into how the school leadership have worked together. The Principal, Deputy Principal, Year 7 & 8 Team Leader and the Maths Lead, each work to optimise, leverage, embed and sustain the impact of the DMIC approach.
Each member of the leadership team actively developed deep understanding of the DMIC change processes.
‘Often when DMIC in-class support Mentors are in, I’ll come alongside them as well, and notice what’s happening, think about “Am I noticing the same things as the DMIC Mentors are noticing so I can support teachers’ practice in-between times?”…For us it has been a really big game-changer.’
Jayne Senington, Deputy Principal
Massey University’s DMIC Co-leader, Dr Generosa Leach, also considers the Takanini School leadership team’s proactivity in shadowing and learning from the DMIC Mentor’s support in classrooms, from the outset, to be critical for deep change. Without such leadership engagement and learning, teachers can be left floundering, or the Mentors find they are working against the tide.
As Takanini senior leadership came to understand the significance of the DMIC pedagogical change process, the school principal prioritised a dedicated DMIC teacher leadership position. She saw the need to have a teacher leader who was becoming skilled at the DMIC pedagogy in practice, leading and supporting other teachers, including through ongoing collaborative planning and reflection.
Principal, Margaret Aikman, explained that ‘Jarrod Pihama had a very important role in leading and developing trust’.
Mary Rahiti saw the appointment of teacher Jarrod Pihama as Maths Lead Teacher to be a key factor in the dramatic improvement across the school.
The close collaboration between the DMIC Mentor and the Maths Lead Teacher optimised the immediate, responsive and ongoing support for teachers. Mary Rahiti explained, for example, that before her in-class mentoring visits to the school, Jarrod Pihama had prepared a timetable of teachers she would be working with, updated her on the change journey of each teacher, and explained where they were needing more support.
‘Following in-class visits Jarrod is updated on the overall sessions of the day to keep him in the loop of how teacher practice is progressing. As a liaison Mentor my role then is to keep communication strong between the school via Jarrod notifying them of other areas of professional learning and development that would benefit and support shifting student outcomes. This includes mathematical content knowledge, assessment moderation hui for every strand, and support around providing kaiako with visits to observe Mentors teaching Mathematics during the holiday programme hosted by their school.’
The collaborative approach is demonstrated by leadership across the school as they position themselves both as leaders of, and learners in the change process.
‘One of the things that teachers worry about in terms of maths…Do I have the skills to teach this? When teachers collaborate and anticipate students’ learning outcomes together that has the effect of them having a greater repertoire of skills and knowledge and strategies that they can take away and use in the classroom. So you’re not just reliant on yourself. Just as our students collaborate and work together to solve a problem the same can be said for teachers.’
Jarrod Pihama, Teacher & Maths Lead
DMIC Mentor, Mary Rahiti, paid tribute to Takanini School leaders:
‘I have learnt to walk alongside our leaders, keeping discussions open, honest and around our tamariki…Takanini leaders are examples of ones that are able to walk within both worlds of our education system and the ways of being of their whānau.’
Find out more > > >
Change data and video features across successive best evidence in action implementations of Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities have featured on Education Counts.
Hangaia te Urupounamu Pāngarau Mō Tātou | Education Counts
Evidence about the ‘how’ of a shift away from ‘ability grouping’ in education | Education Counts
Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities | Education Counts
Bibliography
Footnotes
- Kazemi, E. (2015). Formative quality assurance report on BES Stewardship of the Platinum Opportunity: Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities Porirua East, 2015. Seattle: University of Washington.
- In the 2018 New Zealand National monitoring study of student achievement in mathematics and statistics, following the investment in DMIC reach to high Pacific population schools, there was a significant lift in mathematics achievement nationally; with the largest achievement gains evident for Year 8 Pacific students between 2013 and 2018. In the 2013 National monitoring study of student achievement in mathematics and statistics, only 11% of Pacific students at Year 8 were achieving at curriculum level 4 or above. In the 2018 New Zealand report that percentage had more than doubled with almost 24% of Pacific students at Year 8 achieving at curriculum level 4 or above compared with almost 27% of Māori and 50% of New Zealand European students.
- Find out more in NZEI’s Professional Journal AKO 2018 - Stunning results from culturally responsive maths. See also the 2019 Gazette article Taking maths into the hearts of communities.
- For example, Professors Jodie Hunter and Roberta Hunter have variously and jointly received: Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia Practical Implications Award (2009); Fulbright Scholar Award (2015); Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia Research Team Award (2018); Marsden Fast Start Award ($300,000); New Zealand Association of Research in Education Fast-start Award (2021); Rutherford Discovery Fellowship (2020 – 2025); Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professorship. The Hunters have worked collaboratively developing a large group of mentors who have themselves become proficient in DMIC implementation as teachers and undertaken advanced study, contributing also to the collaborative research and development for ongoing improvement.
- Leach, G., Latu, V., & Hunter, R. (2023). Drawing on cultural strengths for collective collaboration. Mathematics education for global sustainability (Proceedings of the 46th annual meeting of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education) Haifa, Israel.