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Chapter 5 – Option 2 (Connection)

02/08/2019 10:04 PM | Anonymous

This routine makes use of “Ask-Yourself Questions” to help students hunt for repetition in their process of counting, calculating, or constructing.  What “Ask-Yourself Questions” do you use with your students already or will you start using?


Comments

  • 02/09/2019 2:33 PM | Alison Foley
    The "Ask-Yourself Questions" that I already use with my students that help foster recognizing repetition are "What were the steps in your process for solving the problem?"; "Have you shown your work for all of your steps?." Two questions in the book that I highlighted to begin to use with my students are: "What operations can I use to model this process?" (very different from "what operations did you use to solve the problem?") and "What do I keep doing the same each time?." I think connecting the operations to the process and continually asking yourself if they are the same each time will be helpful for students. I am planning to post these questions as we try the recognizing repetition routine.
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    • 02/09/2019 6:37 PM | Cindy Noftle
      Can use vs did use - nice distinction . I will try this too.
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  • 02/15/2019 10:59 AM | Todd Butterworth
    I ask my students all sorts of questions, now I'm trying to remember the ones that I ask them over and over again. Often I try to see if what they're doing makes sense, so I'll ask them something like "What allowed you to do that?" or "Are we allowed to do this step?" I try to make sure I'm questioning their reasoning both when they are correct and when they are incorrect so they don't automatically think they are wrong.

    Recently my students were working on solving proportions, which I know they often have trouble with, but which will help with a bunch of concepts (similarity, trig, etc). The question I kept asking them was "what's the scary part?" This question, although one of my colleagues says that math isn't scary, so nothing is scary, helped them to think about what step to do next. Those students that embraced that thinking seemed to find some progress and I could hear or see them asking themselves...ok, what's scary now? I wanted them to think about the equation and consider what algebraic steps to do and avoided cross multiplying because then students do that whenever they see fractions.

    Now that I think of it, I ask my students essentially the same question in calculus when we're doing u-substitution. The scary part is most often the u they should choose, so I guess it's a regular part of the way I suggest kids approach concepts.

    Another question that some of my kids use is...what would Mr. Butterworth be asking me? I always have students who want me to sit there while they do problems and verify their thinking after each step, but if they pay attention to what I'm asking them, I'm usually just asking...why'd you do that? Is that allowed? Can you do that? over and over and over again :) So they think I'm helping, but really I just have to ask them over and over again to reconsider their thinking (something that is an important life skill, not just a math skill).
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    • 03/04/2019 10:19 AM | Michele Hanly
      I too try to ask the question "does your work make sense?" I usually ask it when they give their final answer to a problem. My next question is: "can you check your answer to see if you are right?" Often times you can put the answer back into the equation to see if you are correct, but I generally find that students don't have the time or desire to check their work.
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  • 02/15/2019 11:25 PM | Anonymous
    In my one-on-one work with students, I try to highlight the important "ask-yourself questions" they can use to remind themselves of procedures, or to make connections to other knowledge and deepen understanding of concepts.

    Here is a blog post I wrote on these ideas:
    https://karendcampe.wordpress.com/2017/05/10/that-voice-in-your-head/

    In particular, the "where are the trouble spots?" is similar to Todd's "what part is scary?" in that it focuses students on the tricky or key components of a problem.

    Karen
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  • 02/19/2019 9:32 AM | Michele DeMaino
    I feel like I'm always asking my students, "Does that make sense?" "Do you agree or disagree with an idea?" I also ask students if they can repeat other peer's strategies in class. I think this will help when I try to implement the Recognizing Repetition routine. I like the idea that students are talking and looking for patterns. They can also make their thinking visible by acting out the building or drawing to recreate the pattern. This will help all learners see the pattern or how other's are seeing the pattern. I like the part when students have to look and listen for repetition when the presenter is sharing. This will help students not only see it their own way, they will be able to visualize another student's strategy.
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  • 02/20/2019 11:41 AM | Cortni Muir
    The "Ask-yourself Questions" that I often use are "does your answer make sense?" and "Is there another way you can show/model your work"? I try to ask students to think about whether and answer makes sense or not to a problem, whether they have answered a problem correctly or not - I like to challenge their thinking. Asking students for other ways to show/model a problem is helpful to also push their thinking. Also I am a big fan of notice and wonder, so those are definitely ask-yourself questions I use in almost every lesson I do. I love that notice/wonder type of questions can really be an eye opener for teachers and for students to determine whether there is understanding of the math involved and whether students are on the right track.
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  • 02/24/2019 12:08 PM | Kerin Derosier
    I love how process focused the "Ask-Yourself Questions" are and they are such a great thing to refer to for teachers. So often students think the answer is the most important part, when of course as teachers we know its the process and strategy that we are focused on. In seventh grade as students start to write equations many of them can use words to explain a relationship that is happening but have a hard time then writing it mathematically. I like to use questions to guide them in their process by just asking them to tell me in words what is happening to the quantities. I often tell them that math is another language that has it's own grammar and notations just like learning English or Spanish. We talk about taking our "English" and writing it mathematically.

    For repeated reasoning and coming up with an equation or rule, it is so helpful to ask the students if they see anything repeating here.
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  • 02/24/2019 9:45 PM | Luke
    My kids can almost always go to the next term. However, the idea of the nth term and how to find it confuses them. Usually, the kids can go from the "top" to the "bottom" with me prompting and providing additional examples to build a routine of attack. We break the numbers down and connect with operations to "see" how and generate some type of working rule to apply. I think math facts, number sense, and working memory play a part in generating a rule for the nth term. I do not use enough pictures of patterns as an initial starting point for the kids. This year I will incorporate more visuals to help build the recognition of creating a pattern of increase or decrease.
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  • 02/28/2019 2:32 PM | Jennifer Rianhard
    I'm constantly asking my students what strategy they're using along with what operation makes most sense in the problem solving solving process. Having the students look for regularity in their processes could be helpful to many students I also find that students do not ask themselves, what is it asking me to do? By doing this, it begins the thinking in their minds about the problem and then they can show their math thinking. I would love it if the students asked themselves, does this make sense when they are writing or partner sharing their work. Having the students show their math steps in an organized way is hard for some students. They will start in one spot, run out of room and continue working at the top of the page. Then when they have to go back to check it, they have a hard time following their own steps and work.
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