How do we solve the problem of engagement in Maths?

As so eloquently presented by the one and only Ron Burgundy:

World Maths Day that is (although I'm also quite important - but only to my cats). 

If you haven't been hanging around Twitter, you might have missed the trending #worldmathsday today - a global day of celebration of all things mathematical.

(cue mass groans from all those aged between 5 and 18)

Our school celebrated in a surprisingly efficient and organised way - we measured the distance taken up by all students at school standing in one line:

As tweeted by my boss today!

In my class, we continued the mathematical hijinx by creating a human modality scale using chance terminology:

As tweeted straight from my classroom by my supervisor today! (21st Century learning FTW!)

Our school has a strict no worksheet, no textbook policy. That means all our lessons are hands on, student centered and have specific learning intentions and success criteria to guide student understanding of content and help them answer the question 'Where to next?'.

(on a side note: our school is neck deep in formative assessment practices and we worship at the thrones of  John Hattie and Dylan Wiliam - more on this tomorrow!)

We create these fantastic learning opportunities for students; filled with engaging hands on activities, rich content and quality formative assessment. So the big question remains:

 Why does the word 'Maths' still elicit grimaces and groans from our students?

What are we missing?

I attempted to tackle this problem last year through the introduction of rotational Maths Centers, similar to those used in guided reading groups. Explicit teacher modelling of a skill, followed by students breaking away to work collaboratively in homogenous groupings on tasks that aimed to develop knowledge and understanding of a topic through various skills and disciplines, including technological integration (I used Khan Academy - absolutely brilliant for independent Maths work that is at a student's level, with the bonus of a map that allows students to direct their own learning. Check it out here).

How's that for a mouthful?

It was great! I found student engagement soared and students gained a deeper understanding of the topic. However, some of this could be attributed to the novel nature of the activities, it was a lot of work for one teacher, and was hard to complete without support in the classroom and a fairly well behaved trained class. And it didn't fit in with our current school model of Maths.

So now I'm looking for something else. 

Its easy to blame technology for low engagement, claim that students only get on iPads to play games  or say our kids are 'just so disengaged with the real world'. 

I'm sure they said the same thing about computers when they first were introduced, and now every teacher cries out as soon as the kids can't log on (myself included). They have become an essential resource to us to educate '21st Century learners' and ensure our students have a global understanding. 

However, I have been lucky enough to visit schools throughout Asia, where the only resources teachers have are locked up in a cupboard because they are too precious to be wasted. These teachers teach with chalk and a whiteboard, and yet have full, attentive classes every day. 

So what is the difference with our kids? Do they have to have an iPad in their hands in order for them to learn, or are we teaching 21st Century Learners still using 20th Century techniques? 

I'd hate to think it's the latter, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is.

We're in a time of change, not just at our school, but all over Australia with the forthcoming integration of the new Maths Syllabus. This gives us a chance to really tackle the problem of student engagement in Maths.

So, how can I encourage the urge to add, a passion for polygons and get my students frenetically fractioning? 

Why yes, I just made fraction into a verb, what of it?

Perhaps we really need to stop using technology as a blanket strategy for engaging our students. Or perhaps we need to stop talking about what our kids can't do, and start raving about what they could do (with a bit of pushing).

We need to think outside the monitor, so to speak, to find those learning experiences that really challenge our students and create a deep understanding of content, rather than ticking off syllabus dot points.

Like taking the whole school outside and measuring the length of our student population.

Easier said that done, I hear you say.

True, Prue. 

But, its World Maths Day - lets give it a red hot crack anyway.