Slide 1

Anne Henderson
University College, Bangor Wales
Dyscalculia

Slide 2

Assessment Tests for Students with SpLD

• Single topics - IEPs

• Observe

• Discuss

• Do not pre-judge

• Identify learning style

Slide 3

Specific Tests

• Reliable test

• Results

• Provides comparison

• Identifies difficulties

• Diagnostic information

Slide 4

Dyscalculia Screener (2002)

• Annual licence costs £150 (manual +CD)- Licence renewal costs £50.00

• Graphical display relating to

  • dyscalculia

  • learning / teaching difficulty

  • problems with symbols

  • average maths ability

  
  

Slide 5

Formative Assessment

• Helps students to improve

• Change in four aspects of work:

  • Question and answer dialogue in class

  • Marking homework

  • Peer and self-assessment

  • Involvement of students

  
  

Slide 6

Assessment of Written work

• Closed questions marked in class

• Decide carefully

  • what to assess

  • what outcome

  • specific purposes

  • assess processes

  
  

• Open questions

• Marking policy

• Statements of assessment

• Copies of marking policy

Slide 7

Questions

• Better to ask

• Tell an answer

• Variety of questions

• Listen

• Analyze thinking

Slide 8

Different answers
e.g. What numbers add to make 10?
6 + 4 || 9 + 1 || 3 + 7 || 4 + 3 + 3 || 2 + 7 +1 || 2 + 2 + 6 || 2½ + 7½ || 4½ + 5½ || 1½ + 8 ½

• What are you doing?

• Why that way?

• What have you learned so far?

• Can you remember doing this before?

• What do you need to know about that?

Slide 9

Closed Questions

• Give a precise answer

• e.g. What must I add to 4 to make 10?

• Discover exact knowledge

• e.g. What are two sixes?

Slide 10

Closed question - Open question

Slide 11

Learning Styles (Vail 1993)

• Available for maths?

  • Listen

  • Importance of 'talk'

  
  

• 2D or 3D material?

• Simultaneous or sequential?

• How does the student learn?

• Eager to make connections?

Slide 12

The Verbal/ Auditory Learner (Inchworm)

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The Visual Learner (Grasshopper)

Slide 14

Differences in learning

• Successive pictures

• Two modes in competition

• 'Mental zoom'

• Verbal thinkers notice differences

• Visual thinkers notice similarities

Slide 15

Language, Memory and Sequences

• Verbal rehearsal

• Activation of visual processing

• Grid a visual global frame
  {Wilson & Emmorey (97)}

• Simultaneous global viewing

• Diagrammatic answers

Slide 16

Grid Reference (La Garanderie 1996)

Slide 17

Effective Teaching

• Better qualified

• Inset training

• Length of service

Slide 18

Mathematics Teaching

Slide 19

Types of Teacher Orientations

• Different Orientations:

  • Discovery

  • Transmission

  • Connectionist

Slide 20

Discovery (Student - Mathematics)

• Responsibility of students

• Student's independence

• What is learned

• Lack of readiness

• Natural order for all mathematics

Slide 21

Transmission (Teacher - Mathematics)

• Emphasis on teaching

• Access to maths

• Responsible for learning

• Manipulation of symbols

• Same method

Slide 22

Connectionist (Teacher, Student, Mathematics)

• Teach and learn

• Teacher a learner too

• Listens to student

• Network of connections

• Much discussion

Slide 23

Summary

• If teaching is

• positive, building on strengths,

• multi-sensory

• systematic, structured and sequential,

• not overloaded,

• focused on learning style,

when every individual is valued then it should be successful