Dan, this got me 🤔! Haven’t put this in action but curious about asking students, what question did they ask themself to get started? What question could they ask themself or a classmate to get unstuck?
I've found that following up a student answer--right or wrong--with an affect-free "What makes you say that?" is invaluable. It takes a little of the pressure off.
Yes!! In the same vain, I ask my students. “How do you know?” Asking that question whether the answer is correct or incorrect initially throws my students off as they assume it must be a wrong answer. With time, the culture is created to share thinking and strategies not answers.
I always start with Notice, Connect and Wonder. Cant get those wrong. Everyone can notice something. Connect brings about unique personal, culturally relevant ties to the math. Wonder allows students room to not now and to go beyond the problem if they already “know” an answer. NCW is an excellent way to scaffold for the students that aren’t there yet or who have a learning disability which keeps them from accessing the problem as it is written and has no ceiling for those kids are ready to go beyond.
On occasion, at the end of class, or the beginning of the next class and I will ask students to do a similar or familiar problem of the day or week on a 3/5 card and thenI collect them. I am looking for a :" favorite" wrong answer. No names on the cards. Depending on the problem, I will ask the class to think in pairs or triads what might the person was thinking to arrivie at my " favorite no, that is not quite right". As a class, we solve together and then out lousd Is thank "whoever you are" because you helped us get smarter and recall what we are learning. Sometimes someone might beam or smile broadly. But it is all about being safe and all about thinking. THANK YOU FOR SHARING THE CLIP! How lucky the students are to have this teacher. Great visual representation.
I realize that I have been asking students to make predictions a lot. "What do you think was my most common mistake last class/year?" "How do you think Jim got this answer?" "What do you think Jane was thinking?"
Like it! Predictions CAN be proven correct or incorrect but they don't have the same EXPECTATION of correctness as "What WAS the most common mistake ... ?" or "How DID Jim get this answer?"
This question does have a right answer but I think it removes some pressure on class participation. Following a student explanation like the one in the video and looking at a new system: “How would Max think about solving this next challenge?” There is less pressure to know what is correct or incorrect on your own and more of a focus on understanding how different students can have correct pathways to seeing a pattern or finding a correct answer.
I ask, what are you thinking? But I have established a classroom where kids know it is safe to say things like "I am confused how to start" or"Why did they subtract #?" or even "here's what I did but didn't end the same". Creating a culture of support where all, including me as teacher, know it is safe to make mistakes and learn from them makes guides my questioning. Modeling how to react when mistakes are made is huge too. How often have we "dropped" a negative sign at the start of solving only to end up with a messy solution. A fabulous opportunity to ask kids if that mistake implies I don't know how to solve equations?
A variation I’ve seen on this, “what was the first thing you did that you thought was productive”. Credit to Rick West, and I am sure he said it better!
Dan, this got me 🤔! Haven’t put this in action but curious about asking students, what question did they ask themself to get started? What question could they ask themself or a classmate to get unstuck?
I've found that following up a student answer--right or wrong--with an affect-free "What makes you say that?" is invaluable. It takes a little of the pressure off.
Yes!! In the same vain, I ask my students. “How do you know?” Asking that question whether the answer is correct or incorrect initially throws my students off as they assume it must be a wrong answer. With time, the culture is created to share thinking and strategies not answers.
I always start with Notice, Connect and Wonder. Cant get those wrong. Everyone can notice something. Connect brings about unique personal, culturally relevant ties to the math. Wonder allows students room to not now and to go beyond the problem if they already “know” an answer. NCW is an excellent way to scaffold for the students that aren’t there yet or who have a learning disability which keeps them from accessing the problem as it is written and has no ceiling for those kids are ready to go beyond.
On occasion, at the end of class, or the beginning of the next class and I will ask students to do a similar or familiar problem of the day or week on a 3/5 card and thenI collect them. I am looking for a :" favorite" wrong answer. No names on the cards. Depending on the problem, I will ask the class to think in pairs or triads what might the person was thinking to arrivie at my " favorite no, that is not quite right". As a class, we solve together and then out lousd Is thank "whoever you are" because you helped us get smarter and recall what we are learning. Sometimes someone might beam or smile broadly. But it is all about being safe and all about thinking. THANK YOU FOR SHARING THE CLIP! How lucky the students are to have this teacher. Great visual representation.
I realize that I have been asking students to make predictions a lot. "What do you think was my most common mistake last class/year?" "How do you think Jim got this answer?" "What do you think Jane was thinking?"
Like it! Predictions CAN be proven correct or incorrect but they don't have the same EXPECTATION of correctness as "What WAS the most common mistake ... ?" or "How DID Jim get this answer?"
This question does have a right answer but I think it removes some pressure on class participation. Following a student explanation like the one in the video and looking at a new system: “How would Max think about solving this next challenge?” There is less pressure to know what is correct or incorrect on your own and more of a focus on understanding how different students can have correct pathways to seeing a pattern or finding a correct answer.
Variation from Japanese Lesson Study, “Let’s all try this next problem using Max’s approach. What should we do first?”
I ask, what are you thinking? But I have established a classroom where kids know it is safe to say things like "I am confused how to start" or"Why did they subtract #?" or even "here's what I did but didn't end the same". Creating a culture of support where all, including me as teacher, know it is safe to make mistakes and learn from them makes guides my questioning. Modeling how to react when mistakes are made is huge too. How often have we "dropped" a negative sign at the start of solving only to end up with a messy solution. A fabulous opportunity to ask kids if that mistake implies I don't know how to solve equations?
I often ask students "How did you start to work on this problem?" or "What did you do first?"
We can then go to "Where did you go from there?" or "Is there another way to start this problem?"
These questions make the thinking explicit for others and values multiple strategies rather than the 'one right way' approach.
A variation I’ve seen on this, “what was the first thing you did that you thought was productive”. Credit to Rick West, and I am sure he said it better!
Love this!