Student Engagement in Math Tasks
Collaborative Inquiry in Math @ Darcel S.P
Open-Ended Questions in Math for Student Engagement
Abstract
This is a case study facilitated by the Student Work study teacher collaborating with two grade six classroom teachers in the Peel District School Board. This study explores the impact of open-ended questions in mathematics to increase student engagement and conceptual understanding. Open-ended questions provide a platform to stimulate student thinking and drive participation. Students are involved as active, thinking beings through collaboration, metacognition and differentiation, facilitating task completion and therefore fostering student engagement and student success. Collaboration with teachers allowed better teacher efficacy by incorporating high yield strategies and reflective teacher practice of assessment and instruction of student thinking and learning.
Collaborative Inquiry Proposal - Open Ended Questions in Math
Once in the classroom sitting with students that were selected for the study, I realized that my physical presence allowed students to feel safe and comforted that there was help if needed. Some questions I began to ask myself when I observed students diving into an activity were: · What activities were engaging? · Where students engaged with the particular activity? · How do we measure student engagement? · How might we program to differentiate for all learners to encourage participation? · How do students accept certain roles in groups to allow for deeper thinking for every member? Collaborating with host teachers we discussed this and together came up with our inquiry.
Theory of Action: If we approach mathematical instruction by encouraging student collaborative inquiry through open ended questions in math then all learners will make their mathematical thinking more visible.
Example of Open-Ended Rich Task in Math Through Pedagogical Documentation
Group Work
- looks like
- feels like
- sounds like
With examples
Math Vocabulary
- title of strand
- math vocabulary
- instruction on the definitions with examples
Minds-On Task
Action!
- Students given the data from a graph
- Collaborating to come up with the graph
- They must include titles and figures
- Make their thinking visible through accountable talk
What Do We Do???
- Students were given the graph
- They were asked to come up with the data
- Students struggled in the beginning
Consolidation
- Students spoke about their thinking to the class
- Consolidated their thinking about their learning
- Understood the value of not knowing
- Were able to receive feedback
Action! & Consolidation
Wonderings......hmmmm
- How might we talk less and let students have the floor?
- How do we balance whole class instruction and group work?
- How do we begin to extract level 4 answers from students?
- How might we differentiate further to meet the needs of all learners?
Making Thinking Visible
- Selected a lesson from Marion Small's book Eyes on Math
- Students were asked open ended questions on parallelograms
- Students shared their thinking with the class
- students made thinking visible by communicating their ideas to their peers
- gave valuable information on the assessment and evaluation of student thinking
- students learned from each other
Resources We Used
Open Ended Questions help students learn.
The impact of open ended questions and student engagement
References
References
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Bruce, D. Catherine, Flynn Tara, Ross, John. Assessing the Effects of Collaborative Professoinal Learning: Efficacy Shifts in a Three-Year Mathematics Study. Ministry of Education.
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Fielding, M. (2007). Jean Rudduck (1937-2007). Carving a new order of experience”. A preliminary appreciation of the work of Jean Rudduck in the field of student voice. Education Action Research, 323-336.
Fraser, S., & Gestwicki, C. (2012). Authentic childhood: Experiencing Reggio Emilia in the classroom. Delmar & Thomson Learning.
Goddard, Y. L., Goddard, R. D., & Tschannen-Moran, M. (2007) A theoretical and empirical investigation of eacher collaboration for school impmrovement and student achievement in public elementary schools. Teachers College Record, 109(4), 887-896.
Hertzog, B. Nancy. (1998). Using Open-Ended Learning Activities to Empower Teachers and Students. Teaching Exceptional Children. July/Aug 1998.
Small, Marian. (2012). Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiatie Mathematics Instruction. New York, Teachers College Press.
Small, Marian. (2013). Eyes on Math: A Visual Approach to Teaching Math Concepts. New York, Teachers College Press.
Student Achievment Division. Research Monograph # 46. (2013). Using a Professional Learning Community to Support Multimodal Literacies. February 2013.
Watkins, C., Carnell, E., & Lodge, C. (2007). Effective learning in classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Sheila Sastri
Email: sheila.sastri@peelsb.com
Twitter: @SastriSheila