Sentence Frames: I noticed___ so I looked for____/We noticed____ so we____
Summary: Using sentence frames (such as those listed in this title) can help students share their mathematical thinking and make it easier for all students to participate in class discussions and/or reflections.
Visible Random Groupings: Improving Student Collaboration
Summary: The idea of using "visibly random groups" (VRGs) came from Chapter 2 of Peter Liljedahl's book, Building Thinking Classrooms. In his book, Liljedahl reports that creating random groups of 3 (in grades 3-12) led to the "perfect balance of redundancy and diversity" whereas self-selected groups ended up with "too much redundancy, not enough diversity" (p. 45). The students also needed to see the groups being randomly constructed for the groupings to be effective (p.44).