Incorporating principles of AifL into 2nd level Numeracy

Overview
Sarah Burton currently teaches Primary 6B at Harrysmuir Primary School in Livingston, West Lothian. After the Headteacher, Susan Mackenzie, and another member of staff received some initial Glow training, all staff were encouraged to use Glow to support their classroom learning and teaching activities. Since the school is double-stream, it was initially decided to have one Glow Group per stage. Sarah was so keen to use Glow, she and her stage partner decided to have one Glow Group for each of their Primary 6 classes.

Hear Sarah tell us more about this:

Sarah Burton: Why I use Glow 0:23

Context
The Glow Group for P6B in Harrysmuir Primary has been growing throughout the year. Sarah initially wanted to use the Group to share information with pupils, such as Homework tasks, or about activities that the class would be doing. She soon found though that she could make more use of the Group and the web parts available.

One area that Sarah chose to use Glow for, was to incorporate some of the principles of Assessment is for Learning into the class’s numeracy and mathematics learning. She found that she was able to utilise a range of web parts within Glow to help support this.

In this cookbook, we will focus on how Sarah and the pupils in P6B use the Glow Group as part of their Numeracy and Mathematics learning. In separate cookbooks, you can see how the Glow Group was also used to support Literacy and Social Studies and how Glow Meet has been used effectively as part of literacy work.

So, how was the Glow Group used to support these activities?
Sarah tells us a little bit about this:

Sarah Burton talks about the Literacy and Numeracy Pages 0:10

Let’s look now at the Numeracy page within the Group to find out more.

How is the Numeracy Page in the P6B Glow Group used?

There are a number of web parts within the Numeracy page.

Announcements
The Announcements web part is used to share weekly targets with pupils. These are written in the form of ‘I can’ statements, to mirror Curriculum for Excellence outcomes. There are actually two Announcements web parts on the page, to enable Sarah to give differentiated targets to different groups of children within the class.

Document Store
As there were already other Document stores on other pages within the Glow Group, Sarah had to create the one on this page from scratch, to avoid having a duplicate of any of the existing ones.
This Document Store has been used to upload pupil work, which can then be peer-reviewed. The graphs and charts that were created were actually done as part of the Europe Social Studies topic that the class was doing. Within their groups, pupils researched the weather statistics for the countries they were learning about, entered the data into an Excel spreadsheet and used the software to create the graphs. The activity helped towards the Maths outcome
MTH 1-21a Using technology and other methods, I can display data simply, clearly and accurately by creating tables, charts and diagrams, using simple labelling and scale.

This is an excellent example of Numeracy across Learning, and purposeful use of ICT, with pupils having had a real purpose for learning about graphs and charts.

Text Editor
There are a number of Text Editor web parts on the page. These have been used to upload photos of pupils taking part in a range of learning activities and serve as a form of evidence of pupil participation. They also allow pupils to have a visual reminder of topics they have been learning about previously, rather like an online wall display.

In this cookbook, we will look at
• The Numeracy Page in the P6B Glow Group
• How to create an Announcements web part
• How to create a new Document Store
• How to upload an image to the Text Editor web part

Ingredients

What did Sarah Burton need to do to design and create content on the Numeracy Page?
• A Glow Group at school level
• Add only all of the P6 pupils
• Rename and add pages
• Create multiple Announcements web parts
• Create a Document library
• Add text editor web parts to upload images

In the following videos, we will take a look at the P6B Glow Group and then find out how to replicate some of its structure and content.

What does the P6B Glow Group look like? 8:29

Howto upload an image into the Text Editor web part 8:49

Impact
The P6B Glow Group in general allows pupils to have a permanent record of the work they have been doing. They can access this from home and share their learning with their parents. Through the security of the Group, they can take part in collaborative activities and have a forum for sharing their work.

Hear Sarah tell us about this.

Sarah Burton: Home use and Parental comments 0:11

In addition, all staff have membership of the P6B Glow Group, enabling the sharing of ideas, resources and good practice. Since the Headteacher is also a member, she has been able to see the work that the children have been doing and has taken the opportunity to comment on it and praise them for their efforts.

Related cookbooks

There are currently three other cookbooks relating to other aspects of the P6B Glow Group in Harrysmuir Primary School.

Click on the link to view each one:

Peer Assessment within 2nd Level Literacy and Language

Developing literacy and presentation skills through use of Glow Meet

Incorporating formative assessment and critical skills within 2nd level social studies

Incorporating principles of AifL into 2nd level Numeracy5.0510