Independent and Collaborative Learning

Independent learning puts learners at the centre of their own learning. It depends upon children and young people being self-motivated and confident enough to make informed decisions. This can include choices about resources, pace and level of challenge and evaluating their own progress. As part of working independently, they are not solely reliant on their teacher but are accountable for their learning. Being able to work independently – either individually or in groups – helps learners to pursue mathematical interests and solve problems, as well as develop more generic skills including leadership, responsibility, resilience and team-working that are essential for lifelong learning. 

Collaborative learning challenges individuals to think independently and engage in discussion, debate and activity to achieve specific outcomes. In some schools, children and young people are encouraged to initiate their own learning and contribute to that of others by undertaking independent tasks and presenting their findings to the class.

In pre-school, children respond well to opportunities to initiate their own learning and develop their interests. Through problem solving and experimentation, children enthusiastically explore mathematical concepts together. Effective intervention from adults supports children in taking their learning confidently into other contexts.

To coincide with work experience, young people at class 4 were given a task to trawl employment vacancies online, find a job they were interested in and see if they could ‘survive’ a month on their wages. This involved them investigating questions about tax and costing necessary expenses including car insurance, rent, council tax, utility bills and food.

“They learn so much more by working together because they see how others work and they all chip in with their ideas. And when they forget, one of their group can remind them so forgetting is no big deal.”

Classwork provides rich opportunities for children and young people to demonstrate, extend and explore learning through a variety of exciting and enjoyable activities. Classwork is one piece of the teaching- learning picture and in best practice is connected to what happens in the classroom. Quality homework tasks allow learners to practise or process information, introduce them to material that will be discussed in the future, or provide feedback to teachers so they may check for understanding. As well as reinforcing concepts, effective classwork:

 has a clear purpose and demands active learner engagement;

 provides opportunities for parents and young people to talk about learning in mathematics and see real-life connections and applications; and

 develops higher-order skills such as analysing and researching. 

A Group work challenge

Children in P7 researched the mathematics within a range of board games. Their challenge is to work with their group to design and create a new board game. They chose the theme, set the rules, and invented and designed all of the resources required to play the game. They made use of their mathematical knowledge of the properties of two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional objects, scale, nets, patterns and sequences, and problem solving. They played each others’ games, evaluated them based on agreed success criteria and presented their findings to the class.