I continue to recognize the importance of having students engage in meaningful dialogue about their work in math. And I continue to struggle with how to support those students who demonstrate difficulty with this.
Some time ago, I wrote a blog post about rich questions, used to guide students' thinking while they work. These questions seem quite effective for individual and small groups of students as they work on a math problem, but large group debriefs continue to be an "opportunity for professional growth", as a colleague of mine would say!
A teacher from another school recently shared a resource on accountable talk, which his Early Literacy Teacher had compiled from various sources and provided to the staff there.
Some time ago, I wrote a blog post about rich questions, used to guide students' thinking while they work. These questions seem quite effective for individual and small groups of students as they work on a math problem, but large group debriefs continue to be an "opportunity for professional growth", as a colleague of mine would say!
A teacher from another school recently shared a resource on accountable talk, which his Early Literacy Teacher had compiled from various sources and provided to the staff there.
With her permission, I share it here (to the right). |
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Although I do some of these things already, I feel that many of my students who struggle with attention and focus issues will continue to be "unready" when I call on them and invite them to join the conversation. I also wonder how many -- if any -- of the suggestions come from resources that bear in mind the types of students (high ELL, considerable socio-economic needs) that we are dealing with in the school where I currently teach.
That being said, I do wonder if some of my students merely suffer from "participation anxiety", and if the manner in which I invite them to join the large group conversation could have a more positive effect on the nature of their subsequent input.
It is certainly true that despite the learning challenges they face, my students (with extensive training) now do very well during small group conversations about texts that we've shared.
Our bulletin board is full of evidence of the grand conversations we've had about a wide variety of picture-book-inspired BIG topics: Poverty, Sexism, Racism, Illiteracy, Equity, Community and Citizenship, Peace and more...
That being said, I do wonder if some of my students merely suffer from "participation anxiety", and if the manner in which I invite them to join the large group conversation could have a more positive effect on the nature of their subsequent input.
It is certainly true that despite the learning challenges they face, my students (with extensive training) now do very well during small group conversations about texts that we've shared.
Our bulletin board is full of evidence of the grand conversations we've had about a wide variety of picture-book-inspired BIG topics: Poverty, Sexism, Racism, Illiteracy, Equity, Community and Citizenship, Peace and more...
If students can be trained to successfully and respectfully converse about such big ideas, surely they can learn to have similarly rich dialogue about mathematical thinking and problem solving???!!
I resolve to review the resources and suggestions in the document above, and try again in my classroom!
I resolve to review the resources and suggestions in the document above, and try again in my classroom!