Works in Progress
Informal thoughts and experiences from other math educators and me
In chapter 1 of their book “Teaching for Thinking” Kelemanik and Lucenta discuss three shifts to teachers’ instructional practices that support greater mathematical thinking and reasoning. In the section entitled “Focus on Thinking” (pp.6-10) they introduce the idea of using sentence frames like, “I noticed_________ so I looked for ________” to promote student thinking. [See issue 1 of my newsletter for more details.] I have used the “notice or wonder” strategy for years and incorporating these sentence frames seemed like a natural next step. That is, the sentence frames present a way for students to take their notices and wonders and use them not only to better understand the problem, but to also develop concrete solution strategies over time. For these reasons, I used the sentence frames in the launch and closing during a 7th grade lesson on integers this week. During the launch, I presented students with a table recording a climber’s beginning and final elevation in two different columns. I ask students to think about how we could represent the difference between the final and beginning elevation and then share their ideas with the sentence frame “I noticed_________ so I looked for ________”. At least during this initial attempt, my students did not share any strategies. I heard responses such as, “I noticed the first column only had two different numbers, so I looked to see how many different numbers were in the second column.” While true, this does not get at a useful strategy for finding the difference between two elevations. However, I had better luck with using “We noticed_________ so we ________” and “They noticed_________ so they ________” in the closing. One group said, “We noticed that finding the change was easier when we had a picture, so we put the numbers [from each column] on a number line that went up and down like the thermometers.” I also felt the students were rephrasing each other’s work with more detail when they used the “They noticed_________ so they ________” sentence frame compared to when I just asked them to restate a peer’s thinking. Next time, I will only use the frames in the closing because I think it is easier for students to understand how to share a strategy once they have an answer. However, I will record their responses over several days and then have a class discussion about how we could use some of these ideas in the launch. I think this will lead to more meaningful strategies being shared at the beginning of the activity.
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AuthorI am the Math Instructional Leadership Specialist (ILS) at the Conservatory of the Arts in Springfield MA. All opinions and suggestions are my own and do not necessarily represent Springfield Public School policy. Blog ArchivesCategoriesNewsletter Archives |