Engaging teachers in reflection on their teaching practice through recording and analyzing math discussions in their classrooms. Virginia Bastable TDG 2011

Today’s Session Background Reflecting on Classroom Discussions Analyzing Student Interviews What are the opportunities to incorporate this kind of PD activity into your work with teachers?

Our experience with PD Settings that employ teachers writing about their students’ thinking: Developing Mathematical Ideas (DMI) Seminar Assignments Connecting Arithmetic to Algebra (CAA) on-line course assignments

Example from DMI Building a System of Tens Session 4 Pose a mathematics task to your students related to computation of multidigit numbers. (If you work with students for whom this might not be appropriate, focus on the way they understand numbers between 10 and 20.) You might pose a question taken directly from one of the cases or from the math activities from the seminar, such as exploring a subtraction or multiplication problem using mental math, and representations such as number lines or base ten drawings. Then think about what happened. What did you expect? Were you surprised? What did you learn? Write up your question, how your students responded, and what you make of their responses (your expectations, your surprises, and what you learned). Include specific examples of student work or dialogue. Reporting in detail about the work of a few students is very helpful. In particular, it is useful to analyze the work of students whose work might be confusing.

Our experience with PD Settings that employ teachers writing about their students’ thinking: Developing Mathematical Ideas Seminar Assignments Connecting Arithmetic to Algebra on-line course assignments

Pose this question to your students. Is this number sentence true: = ? Think about how you will help your students learn to have mathematical discussions as you plan. Tape recording the class discussion is important as it provides a record you can reflect on after the class session is over. When you listen to the recording, note student responses that particularly intrigue, surprise or please you. Choose a passage to describe in detail. Include actual student dialogue and discussion. Post a writing in which you describe what happened and write about two or three of the students’ responses.

Teachers’ Writing Class Discussion Ms. Williams What do you learn about the students’ mathematical ideas by reading this class report? What do you learn about the teacher’s understandings—both mathematical and also pedagogical? What points would you want to include in a response to this teacher?

Teachers’ Writing Class Discussion Ms Douglass What do you learn about the students’ mathematical ideas by reading this class report? What do you learn about the teacher’s understandings—both mathematical and also pedagogical? What points would you want to include in a response to this teacher?

Teachers’ Writing Interview Assignment Read interview assignment Talk at your tables about the nature of the assignment. What might come up for teachers as they work with a student to complete this assignment?

Teachers’ Writing Interview Situation-Ms Martino What do you learn about the students’ mathematical ideas by reading this class report? What do you learn about the teacher’s understandings—both mathematical and also pedagogical? What ideas would you want to include in a response to this teacher?

What are each of these teachers learning from the interview? Ms. Hanson Grade 1 Ms. Dalton Grade 5 Ms Samson Grade 6 Ms Ciruti Grade 5

What was the significance of tape recording the interaction?

What are ways this kind of PD activity (recording and writing a reflection on classroom discussion or student interviews) can be integrated into the work you do with teachers?

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