Teach Primary Issue 18.5

W hilst teaching maths as a primary school teacher, I became fascinated with the idea of ‘semantic glue’ – or what makes information ‘stick’ in our memory. The pursuit of answers to ‘the glue question’ led me to undertake a psychology degree. During my studies, I came across these words from the Nobel prize-winning scientist Eric Kandel: ‘Memory is everything. Without it we are nothing.’ Kandel studied Californian sea slugs to reveal how memories are formed. This research helped demonstrate how memory supports the process of monitoring for safety when we are moving through space. Human functioning and reasoning essentially evolved to serve this need. Grasping this powerful idea allows us to appreciate how inextricably linked spatial processing and reasoning are. There are three essential steps in both: - adding new information to what you already know and hold in memory - relating and connecting this information to what’s already known - using this new information to achieve a purpose or find solutions to challenging situations. Reasoning and spatial processing essentially both boil down to extracting meaningful patterns from the environment. Understanding this helps to explain why the latest research into how children learn maths has demonstrated a causal relationship between spatial thinking and academic outcomes, prompting increasing calls to spatialise the maths curriculum. It could also explain why weak verbal and spatial working memory are commonly associated with maths difficulties and maths anxiety. So how can we, as teachers, exploit the Activity 1 – Sort it out: Present children with an assortment of attribute blocks and a simple rule card that says, for example, ‘circle’. Ask them to sort shapes according to the rule. Gradually make this more complex by adding more than one rule for example, ‘circle’ and ‘thick’. Activity 2 – One at a time: Give pupils a set of attribute blocks each and ask them to play a domino game where the rule ‘only one change at a time’ governs the flow of play. They will need to take turns to put down blocks between them, but they won’t always be able to go. Activity 3 – Patterns: You can encourage children to discuss their reasoning by providing prompts to structure their analysis of a pattern. In Figure 1 you can see how pupils are asked to fill in information about every stage of a pattern. For example, has the number of objects changed? Are they the same shape? The grey ‘difference diamonds’ featured in the speech bubbles prompt the recording of this crucial bit of between-item information. Providing the numerical term positions on the roofs helps to structure discussion of the pattern and predictions of the next item in the series. Developing pattern detection skills like this will help children move on to more complex non-verbal reasoning. Analogical reasoning This is perhaps the most familiar type of reasoning, and it features in many popular matrix tasks, such as Fig. 2. In activities like this, the learner needs to choose the right shape to complete a pattern. Information can be deduced by looking at the relationships between the two other given sequences; potential answers are displayed immediately below each question. It’s important for us, as teachers, to understand the steps in the MATHS STICK When teaching numeracy skills, we should make greater use of the science of memory, says Gill Cochrane Making connection between reasoning and spatial skills to help re-address difficulties with maths learning? Pattern detection Relational reasoning makes a unique and positive contribution to maths outcomes. Giving pupils early and explicit experience in rule-following will improve their ability to monitor sets of information for patterns. Attribute blocks vary in shape, thickness, colour and size; early sorting work with these blocks encourages learners to observe and describe relative differences and similarities, and boosts maths vocabulary. Venn diagrams give a great framework for further explicit categorisation work using the blocks. Children can then build on the knowledge gained sorting shapes to generate patterns. This is an important skill, as it involves the application and creation of rules. Figure 1. Making reasoning stages explicit 32 | www.teachwire.net