Friday, April 8, 2011
Chapter 3 Discussion Prompt
The students in Madeline's class developed understanding through modeling and questioning. In working with our 4th grade video problem solving group (Channel 4-VPS), I'm learning a great deal about students' thinking as I guide their problem solving discussions with questioning. Model drawing and the questions I've been pairing with the models are (hopefully!) starting to build pre-algebra concepts in my 7th grade students too. How can carefully crafted questions support students in generalizing mathematical ideas? What questions have worked well with your students? What new questioning strategies do you plan to try?
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Several ideas struck me in this chapter, although Madeline was working with much younger students than I.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the idea of community consensus. Often I'll ask the students for input - does Jack's answer make sense? Can anyone else come up with an alternate solution or way to solve the problem?
I also was considering the idea of moving "horizontally" through a concept and then "vertically." It is how I have previously considered "scaffolding" work, but I like the visual model of the horizontal and vertical (especially as a math teacher, I guess).
The terminology, "introduced after the children have constructed the idea for themselves," made me pause to think. Is the defining of a term limiting to students, or does it offer an anchor for them? I will work on this question myself.
I plan to work more horizontally, and allow for the vertical "aha" moments to come from the students' discovery. I think the new set of GLO and "essentials" will help me focus on how to do that.