Student Discourse Challenge
K - 12 Mathematics
Why Participate
One goal in education is to provide students with opportunities to make their thinking visible. This shifts the focus of teaching on the design, facilitation, and implementation of learning to be student-centered.
"Effective mathematics classrooms have one feature in common, no matter the curricula, textbooks, configuration of desks, or how "traditional" or "progressive" the classroom culture. That feature is rich mathematical discourse. In all successful mathematics classroom, whether in preschools or high schools, students can discuss mathematical concepts and patterns with sophistication.
For students to develop the skills to engage in high-level mathematical discourse, they must have frequent opportunities to reflect on their thinking and work and to present it to their peers - in pairs, small groups, and whole class - and to critique each other's thinking. This should take place both in speaking and in writing." Learning That Lasts.
"Every time I am tempted to tell students something, I try to ask a question instead." Steven C. Rinhart "Never Say anything a Kid can say!"
"Effective mathematics classrooms have one feature in common, no matter the curricula, textbooks, configuration of desks, or how "traditional" or "progressive" the classroom culture. That feature is rich mathematical discourse. In all successful mathematics classroom, whether in preschools or high schools, students can discuss mathematical concepts and patterns with sophistication.
For students to develop the skills to engage in high-level mathematical discourse, they must have frequent opportunities to reflect on their thinking and work and to present it to their peers - in pairs, small groups, and whole class - and to critique each other's thinking. This should take place both in speaking and in writing." Learning That Lasts.
"Every time I am tempted to tell students something, I try to ask a question instead." Steven C. Rinhart "Never Say anything a Kid can say!"
The Challenge
- Design the Learning Experience: The Teacher will act as the facilitator of learning.
- Student discourse and presentation.
- Provide evidence of student learning.
- Receive free books and manipulatives for your classroom.
1. The Learning Experience
The teacher designs a high-level lesson where students work in groups to solve a task that requires discourse. The teacher provides support in the form of questions that move their learning forward. A guide to determining if your lesson is high-level: The Task Analysis Guide.
See The 5 practices to Orchestrate Effective Discourse below.
See The 5 practices to Orchestrate Effective Discourse below.
2. Student Discourse and Presentation Lesson
Provide a PowerPoint or Google Slide (see sample) to structure discourse.
- Randomly select student to read learning target (1 - 2 minutes).
- Whole Class Discussion to activate prior knowledge lead by a student (5 - 10 minutes)
- Group or partner work (20 - 30 minutes)
- Student Presentations of work (5 -10 minutes)
- Debrief and Connections (5 - 10 minutes)
3. Evidence of Student Learning
Capture evidence of the student learning while working in groups, during discussions, and during student presentation of work. This may include student work, video of group discourse, presentation video, or pictures of student work.
Upload your evidence here.
Upload your evidence here.
4. Prizes
The biggest prize is seeing and hearing your student's conversation about math content. You will also win resource books and manipulatives for your classroom based on your evidence of student learning.
Probing Questions to Build Mathematical Discourse
Taking Students' Ideas Seriously
- Explain how you solved the problem.
- How did you figure that out?
- What in the problem made you use addition? (subtraction, multiplication, division)
- Why did you use this method?
- Who knows what the presenter is going to do next?
Encourage Multiple Strategies
- How is your strategy similar to/different from this approach/model?
- Can you solve this problem using a different/more advanced way?
- Does anyone have a different way to explain this?
- How could you organize the information more efficiently?
Pressing Students Conceptually
- How do the numbers relate back to the problem context?
- Does this approach always work? How do you know?
- For what types of numbers does this approach work?
- How could you rewrite this problem to make it more challenging?
- Is there an example where this doesn't work?
- What is the pattern?
Addressing Misconceptions
- Would this idea work in all situations?
- When does this idea work and when doesn't it?
- Why doesn't this approach work?
- How could you avoid this mistake next time?
Focusing on the Structure of Mathematics
- What does this idea/symbol mean in the problem/model?
- What assumptions are you making?
- How would you convince someone else that this is correct?
- How does this approach work for more difficult numbers/problems?
- What are the key mathematical ideas that come out of solving this problem?