Comparing swim teaching and maths teaching

On the school holidays I enrolled my children in a five-day swimming program. I have learnt from experience that weekly swimming lessons are too difficult to fit into our weekly schedule, so many years ago I decided it was best to ‘batch’ and complete them over one week in the holidays!

I have found this works well on both a logistical and instructional level (I feel like they each make good progress over the week, and I don’t feel stressed each week of the term that I am running late for swimming lessons) Win, Win!

I think I have mentioned previously that one of my first part-time jobs was as a swim teacher. This experience is definitely one of the reasons I decided to become a Primary School teacher. I loved the 'teaching' part of swim teaching (just not so much the standing in the pool while teaching part)!

As I sat and watched Miss 13, Miss 8 and Mr 5 complete their lessons, it occurred to me that there are many parallels between swim teaching and maths teaching. In this week's blog I would like to run through a few I noted while sitting poolside.

1. Mindset and Confidence

Mindset and confidence is everything when learning to swim. If you are scared of the water, scared of putting your head under, scared of getting water up your nose, scared of diving or scared of the 'deep end', this is going to severely impact your learning. No matter how good you are as a swim teacher, if you cannot help a child to overcome these fears, they will not progress anywhere near as rapidly as a child who has 'no fear'. Addressing this fear and instilling confidence through experiencing success is where you need to begin your instruction.

This is the same in the maths classroom. Children who have had negative experiences with maths will have a mindset block that will impede their learning. I once read that our brain often remembers negative experiences over positive experiences- it is called the negativity bias. This is true in the pool, and true in the maths classroom. 

2. Building Relationships

Children need to place a lot of trust in a swim teacher. Mr 5 was very reluctant to dive in the pool on the first day of his lessons. But the teacher did a wonderful job of building his trust over the week. He started by encouraging him just to do a 'safety entry' into the pool (basically sliding in). Then they worked on jumping with the teacher holding his hands. Each success built confidence and trust that the teacher would not let him 'sink' (which he told me he was worried about!). By the end of the week he was 'semi-happily' jumping into the pool without holding onto the teacher! It was great progress when you consider where he started on Day 1, all a result of relationship and trust building.

In the maths classroom, the same is true. If we want our students to take risks and step out of their comfort zone, they need to trust that we will be there to support them. Starting on the first day of school, we need to show our students that we have care, believe in them and assure them that we will always be there to support and cheer for them. We need to help them experience success, provide meaningful feedback and motivate them to see that they can be successful in maths.

3. Feedback

Throughout all the sessions, the swim teacher was constantly providing high quality feedback to each swimmer. For Miss 13 it was mostly stroke correction feedback. He was constantly providing small pieces of specific feedback. She would practice implementing the feedback, then she would be given another small tweak to make. This constant feedback loop of what Hattie & Timperley (2007) describe as 'feed up' (what is the goal- i.e: smooth freestyle stroke) 'feedback' (what her current level of performance was- i.e: you are spreading your fingers) followed by 'feed forward' (where she should go to next i.e: you need to keep your fingers together), saw her make great progress across the week. Feedback is such a key feature in high quality instruction.

In the maths classroom, feedback is also important. We want our students to know what the goal is (learn your 2x multiplication facts) how they are going (you are not yet fluent with your doubles) where to next (let's make flash cards and practice double 3,4 and 5 three times per day). With this very specific feedback, students can rapidly move forward in their learning.

4. Fluency

Swimming, like anything requires practice in order to develop fluency. The swim teacher encouraged Mr 5 to practice blowing bubbles in the bath each night between the lessons. These mini practice sessions were critical to him reinforcing the neural pathways and developing the muscle memory and confidence required to internalise the 'bubble, turn, breathe' pattern. Each day you could see he was developing fluency in this skill, which allowed him to focus on co-ordinating his arms and legs while breathing. Clearly this lessened the cognitive load and was an enormous help.

If you have been following me for a while, you know I am a BIG believer in the importance of developing fluency in foundational maths skills. Providing specific, uninterrupted, purposeful time for our students to practice key skills in maths, will develop their fluency and free their 'cognitive bandwidth' to focus on more advanced maths.

This week I encourage you to consider if there are any students in your class who might benefit from a boost of confidence, a little relationship building, some specific feedback or a little work on fluency. If there are... harness your inner swim teacher, tighten their goggles, and encourage them to 'dive' into their maths work (pun intended)! 

Have a great week!

Ange🎓🎲

P.S. You can download the PDF version of this blog to print or share with colleagues here.