Professional Inquiry Project Report

‘How can I facilitate effective transitions within mathematics lessons?’

Context
The site on which this professional inquiry project took place was a primary school located
in the north eastern suburbs of Adelaide. The school consists of approximately 400 students
with a category 5 rating of educational disadvantage. The classroom in which the data
collection will took place was a composite class of year 3’s and 4’s. The class consists of 30
students, 13 year 3 students and 16 year 4 students. Among this group, 5 students have
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), 1 student has Cerebral Palsy, 3 students are of Aboriginal
or Torres Strait Islander decent and 4 students learn English as an additional
language/dialect. At the beginning of the term 3 there were 2 new students placed in the
class and in week 4 there was a 3rd new student.

Focus
The area of focus for my professional inquiry project (PIP) was transition periods. This was
originally formulated into the question ‘how can I reduce transition times within
mathematics lessons?’. However, as a result of difficulties in collecting quantitative data to
measure the time reduction it was discussed by myself, my mentor and a critical friend that
it would be best to change the question slightly. Therefore, my PIP question became ‘how
can I facilitate effective transitions within mathematics lessons?’. My focus aligns with
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AISTL, 2017) teaching standard 3.3
‘use teaching strategies’ and standard 4.2 ‘manage classroom activities’. As I will be using
transition strategies to manage the classroom and facilitate effective transitions. However in
reflection I notice the majority of my improvement focused on standard 3.5 ‘use effective
classroom communication’ as I provided clearer expectations for transitions. The curriculum
area focus for data collection was Mathematics. The students in this class were taught a
new unit on money and financial maths. Maths lessons were taught daily for approximately
40-50 minutes. I planned for 10-15 minutes of this time dedicated to a Mental Routine
focused on mental computation strategies (Baker 2018). The remaining time was split into
5-10 minutes direct instruction and questions, 10-15 minutes of time spent on the planned
learning experience and lastly, 5-10 minutes pack up and reflection.

Research done by Orlowski and Hart (2010) discussed that this may have been a time of
struggle for students as they are all at different engagement and enthusiasm levels before

Hannah Pugliese ID 110170747

Professional Inquiry Project Report
‘How can I facilitate effective transitions within mathematics lessons?’

these transitions occur. This was highly relevant to my context as the mathematics lessons
spanned over the week which fostered different student energy levels. I struggled in my
lead in days with providing students with this unity required for a successful transition.
Thus, it is something I need to ensure I effectively facilitate to allow greater ‘flow’ between
lessons maximising teaching time. In terms of the high number of students with ASD I found
that this was a particularly difficult time as they were asked to put an end to the current
activity and begin the next and successfully managing themselves during pack up times
which Guardin and Fullerton (2014) state is a difficult process for most students even those
without ASD. They became highly anxious at the idea of abandoning their unfinished work,
this is supported by the work of Buck (1999) who discusses the heightened anxiety state in
transitions. Given that my mathematics lesson required more than one transition it was
evident early on that this would be a point of struggle for some of these students, therefore,
an excellent choice for the inquiry focus as there was many opportunities for data
collection.

The Inquiry Process

Originally, I aimed to time my transitions and reflect on this quantitative data for changes as
Grundy (1995) suggests that this would provide clearer cause and effect correlations rather
than reflective journaling alone. However, given the complexity of the class and the fast
faced nature of a teaching day, timing was not an option. After discussing options with my
university supervisor and mentor teacher it was decided that it would be more effective to
devise a scale system (See Appendix A). The scale outlines the goals for transition
effectiveness in terms of instructions, use of voice, nonverbal cues, smoothness and flow.
The second data collection method was my own reflective journaling which I found most
effective. Within this journal I detailed conversations and unstructured interviews with my
mentor, critical friend and relief teachers.

This data was collected once I had planned and implemented strategies outlined by
Mcintosh et al. (2004) to gather baseline data of how students were responding to these
strategies. The transition strategies originally used were focused on explicit instruction of
expectations, consist attention grabbers, counting down and time warnings. I would reflect
on these strategies after the lesson can provide myself an overview of the weeks findings
and future goals.

Hannah Pugliese ID 110170747

Professional Inquiry Project Report
‘How can I facilitate effective transitions within mathematics lessons?’

Results
To begin with I was focusing on the transitions to begin and end a mathematics lesson,
however, I learnt quickly that the lesson contained several transitions that required student
engagement. I gathered the baseline data and trialled transition strategies such as giving a
breakdown of my expectations, for example, ‘In a moment you need to close your books,
put them in your tray and come sit down on the floor’. To begin with these expectations
were very brief and I reflected in my journal that ‘I need to clarify with the students to
ensure they have understood what I am telling them to do to avoid so many students
confused and asking questions during the transition time’. This reflection was something
that I refined with the combination of other strategies.

Conversations with the relief teacher whom worked in the class for 3 days whilst my mentor
was away were very insightful data collection opportunities. He highlighted to me that
‘students aren’t completely listening to you in your instruction time, they are fiddling with
the things you have for them at their desk. You need to make sure you have their full
attention before starting your instruction or you’ll have issues in your transition’ (Riccardi,
23rd August 2018). It was also discussed with me by my site coordinator that ‘when you are
giving an instruction or waiting for a transition instruction to be followed, make sure
students aren’t coming up to you. If they come up to you they are blocking your presence in
the classroom and you lose the control of the transition’ (Saxby, 12 th September 2018). Both
these comments were things I had not considered and I immediately noted needed change.

In terms of preparing students for the end of the lesson I trialled time warnings for 10
minutes and then 5 minutes to ensure the students had plenty of time to prepare for the
transition. However, I reflected in my journal that ‘when I use my attention grabber the
immediate reaction is negative to packing up the mathematics task they are working on. I
think they struggle with the two warnings and only need the one to finish up then a pack up
soon after’. These negative reactions were mostly from those students who struggled with
abandoning their work if it unfinished or they felt they did not understand the concept
entirely.

The quantitative data collected in the form of effectiveness scales expressed a clear
indication of improvement. For the initial lessons that proved less effective the most
common comments from my mentor were ‘unclear expectations, not enough time, maybe

Hannah Pugliese ID 110170747

Professional Inquiry Project Report
‘How can I facilitate effective transitions within mathematics lessons?’

don’t move the students around the room too much’ (Morris, 4 th to 20th of September
2018).

From this data I found key themes that I specifically needed to work such as; clear
expectations, holding attention of students and providing steps to which students can
follow. This was validated by a critical friend who agreed that these themes would be
manageable to refine and improve on during the time available.

Reflection
Whilst collecting this data the major changes I made were my approaches to instruction
times. As the relief teacher suggested the children needed have all distractions removed
prior to an instruction and his approach to this was to abandon their work and sit on the
floor. He would then give them the instruction for cleaning up or moving to a new activity
and ensured they all understood before proceeding. However, after discussing this with my
mentor and trialling the approach of abandoning work I found it to be messy during my
maths lessons. Especially for those students with ASD it was extremely difficult. As I was
facilitating a mental routine for mental computation, all students had concrete
manipulatives on their desks such as laminated sheets, whiteboard markers and cloth. This
required a clean-up mid-lesson which lead to too much movement happening if I was
bringing students to the floor, then to clean up, then back on the floor, then their desk. It
was too tedious. The compromise I found and refined was giving students the instructions at
their desk. To ensure they were listening to me I asked them to either have their hands on
heads while I spoke or hands in the air with nothing in them. This approach became very
effective to use as the students began to realise the lesson would not continue until I had
everybody’s attention, thus quickened the pace of transitions as the student became
familiar with my expectations.

Summary of Learning
Essentially, I gathered my data from my mentor, relief teacher and site coordinator to refine
my ability to facilitate effective transitions in mathematics. I began with my own approach
based on my research prior to teaching full time in the classroom. This was followed by the
immense feedback I received from experienced teachers at the site and allowed me to trial
new strategies for transitions. These were reflected on with my mentor further and

Hannah Pugliese ID 110170747

Professional Inquiry Project Report
‘How can I facilitate effective transitions within mathematics lessons?’

critiqued to a point where I was able to find a comfortable middle ground. I learnt that
although some strategies were suggested to me by other educators I found it difficult to
implement them when I felt uncomfortable. Therefore, I ended up using a combination of
strategies I researched or found and those suggested to me by others, each of which were
adjusted to suit the needs of the class.

Hannah Pugliese ID 110170747

Professional Inquiry Project Report
‘How can I facilitate effective transitions within mathematics lessons?’

References

Australian Institute for Teachers and School Leadership 2017, Australian Professional
Standards for Teachers, cited 26th September 2018 <https://www.aitsl.edu.au/>.

Baker, A 2018, ‘Natural Maths Mental Routine Ebook’ in Natural Maths cited 23rd
September 2018 <https://naturalmaths.com.au/store/mental-routines-course>.

Buck, G 1999, ‘Smoothing the rough edges of classroom transitions’, in Intervention in

School and Clinic, vol. 34, no.4, pp. 224-227.

Grundy, S 1995, ‘Action research as professional development’, Innovative Links Project,

Murdoch, W.A, Australia.

Guardino, C & Fullerton, E 2014, ‘Taking the time out of transitions’ in Education and
Treatment of Children, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 211-228.

McIntosh, K, Herman, K, Sanford, A, McGraw, K, Florence, K 2004, ‘Teaching transitions:

techniques for promoting success between lessons’ in Council for Exceptional Children, vol.
37, no. 1, pp. 23-38.

Orlowski, M & Hart, A 2010, ‘Go! Including movement during routines and transitions’ in
National Association for the Education of Young Children, pp. 88-92.

Hannah Pugliese ID 110170747

Professional Inquiry Project Report
‘How can I facilitate effective transitions within mathematics lessons?’

Appendix A

Hannah Pugliese ID 110170747