Reflect after reading Chapters 5-7:
How do we answer questions in a thinking classroom? When and how do we give tasks?
Consider the following questions:
- What is resonating with you from the reading?
- What caused you to pause and think during this section?
Respond and Interact
After reading these chapters, please post your response to one {or more} of the prompts above. Read our colleagues' reflections. Feel free to respond to someone by sharing a comment, insight or interesting possibility.
I love the line "Asking a question, one of the most studently things a student can do. . ." and ". . .answering a question is one of the most teacherly things a teacher can do. . . " Hahaha So true and I get roped into that ALL THE TIME! I'm on the look out now! I love the answer to the "Stop Thinking" question! Our new math curriculum tracks with Chapter 6. Although it's not a verbal thinking task, the warm up does do a great job at getting them in the thinking mindset. I also love how they have to justify their answers. Chapter 7 gets a "yes, yes and yes" from me. The opportunity to check understanding should be the true purpose! Sooooo much anxiety from little middle school me about having to trade and grade and then call out my homework score in front of the class. I'm thinking so much of my "I'm not a math person" is derived from math homework. This is like a little therapy session for me. (hahahahaha)
ReplyDeleteTasks given at the beginning of the lesson when energy and engagement is high makes so much sense to me. A part that I underlined was: ."just know that the longer you talk, and the longer they listen, the less likely you are going to be able to get them to think." We need our kids to be DOING math within the first few minutes of every lesson.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated the outlining of what kinds of questions students ask and some strategies to use when responding to them. I notice I tend to lean on not answering "stop thinking" questions, but if students start to shut down and reclude into themselves, it's hard for me to just walk away. Most of the time, those students won't even get to work until I let them know I will help them get started. It begs the question of whether or not I'm taking their opportunity for thinking away from them, but if those few students don't get that initial support, they won't even try. "Learned helplessness" sinks deep into them if you're not careful.
ReplyDeleteI also really like the idea of taking the student journals out of the equation when it comes to having them work on a task. However, I don't know how feasible it is unless they have enough vertical surfaces to write on. They could do it on their whiteboards in the meantime, but from what I'm reading, it seems that this is best practice. I'm really looking forward to getting vertical surfaces.
When I read that we as teachers answer 200-400 and sometimes even 600 questions a day I am not surprised at all!! No wonder so many of us feel like we have to build up stamina after the summer break... that's a lot of questions. I liked reading about the breakdown of types of questions and I also found the suggested responses for stop thinking or proximity questions really helpful. I am going to start using those!
ReplyDeleteThe section about homework really resonated with me. At one of my previous schools we had a lot of conversations around homework and the impact it made for our student population. We ultimately decided to not send homework home because our practices around it were missing the mark in terms of what we were hoping the outcomes would be for homework.
I find it fascinating that teachers answer so many questions each day, yet not surprising at all. I often respond to stop thinking questions by stating, “that’s interesting.” I can see myself responding using the questions provided by answering questions with questions. I like the idea of answering a question because they ask as prompts to keep trying and can also redirect student focus to the task. I do the smile and walk away, I can see where some students would find this upsetting, but a smile does demonstrate a response. We stopped doing homework this year and I am so glad we did. The part of the students that really need it are the ones that don’t do it really resonated with me. I feel like our math cooldowns this year are great checks for understanding and give the information I need to support student learning without needing to send homework home.
ReplyDelete