A bit of thinking for homework… We are thinking about the Parents meeting in week 9. What are your ideas? What do parents need to know? What do we want them to take away? What worked well at the last meeting? How can we bring your culture/ home culture/ lives into Maths?
MATHS Reading Term 3 2018: How to get Students Talking!
Reading presented by John and Carl
Definition of discourse .
……….ways of representing, thinking, talking, agreeing, and disagreeing; the way ideas are exchanged and what the ideas entail; and as being shaped by the tasks in which students engage as well as by the nature of the learning environment. It is not a natural way that children interact and thus has to be modelled and practised.
Garcia goes on to say...
that one way to deepen conceptual understanding is through the communication students have around concepts, strategies, and representations.
Five Teaching Practices for Improving the Quality of Discourse in Mathematics Classrooms
1) Talk moves that engage students in discourse,
2) The art of questioning,
3) Using student thinking to propel discussions,
4) Setting up a supportive environment, and
5) Orchestrating the discourse.
Talk Moves:
Questioning: Questions which promote reasoning might include…..
How did you reach that conclusion?
Does that make sense?
Can you make a model and show that?”
Does that always work?
Is that true for all cases?
Can you think of a counterexample?
How could you prove that.
This discourse helps to extend thinking and engage all learners in discussion around proving an answer is correct.
Questions which promote Problem solving, inventing etc.
What would happen if?
Do you see a pattern?
Can you predict the next one?
What about the last one?
Finally, teachers use questions to
Questions which connect Mathematical ideas….
How does this relate to . . .?
What ideas that we have learned were useful in solving this problem?
Student Thinking Propels Discussion:
Discussion demands that students summarize and synthesize the mathematics they are learning
student thinking is a critical element of mathematical discourse.
misconceptions are made clearer to both teacher and student,
conceptual and procedural knowledge deepens.
Mistakes and misconceptions are considered and enable students to challenge their own thinking and the thinking of others
Environment
Physical, students facing each other
UDL
Emotional, a safe environment where students can challenge each other
The focus is the person who is talking and being listened to.
Orchestrating the Discourse
The teacher like a conductor
Five Practices Model
The Five Practices Model
The teacher’s role is to:
1) anticipate student responses to challenging mathematical tasks;
2) monitor students’ work on and engagement with the tasks;
3) select particular students to present their mathematical work;
4) sequence the student responses that will be displayed in specific order
5) connect different students’ responses and connect the responses to key mathematical ideas.
6) Hold students accountable to their ideas and keep discussion on track.
Modelling the behaviours necessary to make it work
Explicit teaching of the necessary behaviours
Modelling the language, eg. I expect to hear you discussing vertices, faces etc.
Modelland describe how they need to be listening to each other
Use goal setting and reflection for students to track their learning
Make the students do the work
Concluding:
Maths Teachers must decide what to pursue in depth, when and how to attach mathematical notation and language to students’ ideas, when to provide information, when to clarify an issue, when to model, when to lead, and when to let a student struggle with difficulty, and how to encourage each student to participate.
Students that are encouraged to share their thinking and engage in mathematical debates are furthering their own knowledge and challenging misconceptions.
We will be starting our Maths sessions with something that has been been going well in our Maths lessons. We started with this today. Our TAIs and Triples with fit in with one or more of the hunches that we developed together in session 1:
Some of our students do not like Maths (girls…) Attitudes to Maths have a huge impact on achievement. (Girls, Societal/parental messaging, stereotypes etc.) Some students lack engagement in Maths (have little connection to the relevance, application, beauty of Maths) parent community don’t understand current approach to maths Teaching/learning.
Developing discourse in Maths will have an impact on student achievement. Discourse in Maths is less rich than in Literacy. Including unpacking the meaning of Maths vocab and ideas.
Formative assessment practices need to be enhanced in order to capture and track achievement day to day. How can assessment procedures align with teaching and learning. How can stress be removed from assessment?
Many students lack Number Sense (as a result of abstract nature of Maths teaching,procedural learning in Maths?)
Students in Maths are less likely to be in ‘Flow’, an investigative/Inquiry cycle would bring more meaning?
How will/might this learning impact on achievement for your Target students? What are you investigating in Maths? What hunch is this connected to? How does this plan/lesson connect to your TAI? What are the innovations you are trialling? What are the desired outcomes for learners? How do you think the action you have selected going to impact? What are the desired effects for your practice? What are the shifts in your practice you are working towards? What will this mean for you? How will that make you feel if you achieved these?
"How often and how deeply do teachers, coaches, principals or district supervisors explicate their reasoning and hold it out for scrutiny by the professional community? How often do we speak up, ask questions, challenge assumptions and dig deep when it comes to questioning our practice and beliefs? How many of us avoid these behaviours for fear of offending someone or being seen as resistant or difficult? When people around us do question our beliefs or practice, how many of us receive these questions with an open mind and an inquiry stance?"
