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Chapter 7 – Option 1 (Reflection) [Fall 2020]

11/16/2020 4:12 PM | Anonymous

Comment on one of the instructional strategies from the chapter OR a detail from the classroom vignette that you find thought-provoking.

Comments

  • 11/18/2020 6:40 AM | Cortni Muir
    I like this chapter a lot. I think as teachers we don't focus on questions, more importantly student questions enough. When we feel rushed for time, its often hard for us to add in those things that help build curiosity.
    One of my favorite strategies, even before this book, is the idea of Notice and Wonder. This is something as I teacher I have used often, and as a Coach, something I encourage teachers to use as often as they can. I feel you get so much insight about students and their thinking by posing those questions. If it has to do with a problem, you can gain some information about how well they understand the problem, misconceptions they may have.
    I will definitely but encouraging teachers to also try using some things from 101questions. In our current hybrid world, this could be a great way to start a virtual class and get discussions going.
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    • 11/30/2020 9:42 PM | Anonymous
      Like you, I realized that student questions weren't the focus of many lessons, so I've added the Notice and Wonder technique into my repertoire. One tip I have to make it work well is to give explicit time for individual thinking. Students can jot down ideas on paper, on a whiteboard, in a chat box, on a google slide, in a survey/google form, etc.

      You can then have students pair off, discuss their N&W, together add at least one new item to their joint list, and then decide which one or two items they'd like to share with the class (if you plan to have a whole class discussion on the topic). Alternatively, if your students are reluctant to share in the large group, use N&W for individual journals.
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  • 12/03/2020 1:39 PM | Stacey Daly
    I really like the idea of "Independent Study: Math as a Way to Ask and Answer Your Own Questions." I listened to Zager's webinar during the Build Math Minds Virtual Summit during the summer of 2019 in which she discussed the idea of a drop everything and do math time in which kids could pursue their own math questions and was very intrigued by the idea. Throughout the chapter, she makes a good point that we tend to teach math to kids with the idea that math is about answering someone else's questions not asking our own. I have tried to figure out how to incorporate this idea into the classrooms in which I coach. I can definitely see it being used for enrichment for students who pretest out of a unit. However, I agree with Zager that all students deserve to be able to pursue their own questions. This school year we are all struggling with how to fit in content and make up for last spring. Something like this would help to develop a love of and interest in math. We just need to figure out how to fit everything i.
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    • 02/18/2021 4:55 PM | Anonymous
      Stacey,
      I agree about the power of getting students to pursue their own math questions, and the struggle to fit in content this school year.

      One technique is to give students a place (a journal, an online google doc) and time to note down extra wonderings, or questions they want to answer next. Perhaps students can work on these new investigations during some of the asynchronous time this school year.
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  • 12/31/2020 10:31 PM | Carrie Allen
    I was fascinated by the Independent study. I wish I had thought of this as a teacher. Some students can get so bored when the thinking feels easy to them, and I love the idea of giving them the option to explore something they are interested in. I feel like this is "growing" mathematicians.

    As a coach, I now feel the need to find out how to do this is some way with some of my teachers, with hopes that it would spread to others. I love this idea with the connection to geometry and I would love to see our kindergartners do this. I've used notice and wonder charts in my own classroom, with math and science inquiries and I have shared it with my colleagues now that I coach. This and independent study could totally change Math for some students.
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    • 02/18/2021 4:57 PM | Anonymous
      Carrie, I agree that students can grow by pursuing some math questions that interest them. See above ^^ I replied to Stacey about ways to give kids a place and time to park their ideas and study them later.
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