Orchestrating Mathematical Discussion

Anticipation:

Before giving an activity, to antiquate all the answers the students may give.

Really good to do this collaborative planning.

Clear learning intention. To know what you are looking for. 

Monitoring: 

Monitoring sheet of differently levels students could achieve.

What you anticipate can become your monitoring

Questions are key. If you see level 2 working out, you could ask some questions that could allow student to try a higher up strategy.

Selecting:

Select students to share their work, choose students who have achieved the goals you aimed to achieve. Teacher can choose which answers/strategies to share with class.

Sequencing:

Going over a various responses.

"By making purpose-ful choices about the order in which students’ work is shared, teachers can maximize the chances that their mathematical goals for the discussion will be achieved. For example, the teacher might want to have a student present the strategy used by the majority before one that only a few students used" (Mathematical Teaching in the Middle School)

Connecting:

Connecting the Key ideas. 

Acceleration....

Here's What:
Last week I decided to base my mathematics teaching around the acceleration strategy that we had learnt about in our recent professional development.

The keys from our reading "Jump-starting students who are behind" by Suzy Pepper Collins was to 

• make learning experiences relevant (real-world relevance)
• rich vocabulary experiences
• hands on experiences

The learning in the classroom is fractions, decimals and percentages in every day life focusing on students being able to use a range of additive and multiplicative strategies with whole numbers, fractions, decimals and percentages.

I attempted to achieve this by creating a learning experience where students could use the current Warehouse mailer to go shopping for easter eggs for their family, and buy something for themselves with a budget of $120. What fraction of the money would they spend on themselves? What fraction of the money would they spend on easter eggs?

So What?

As a teacher I enjoyed teaching/guiding students in this lesson. I was thrilled to hear rich mathematical conversations among students. The barriers of grouping and ability was removed and all students engaged in the learning.

Have a look at our blog, to see first hand students enjoying the relevant, hands-on learning experiences ...      Room 13 - Easter Challenge

Now What?
I would like to implement more learning this way. As identified in assessment data, the students in my class need the most support in learning Addition/Subtraction.
I wonder how I can incorporate this learning in a relevant context for my students??