Student-to-student discourse: Tip #2

Imagine this: You walk into a colleagues class and you see students scattered around the room, huddled into groups of 4, having great math discussion about different mathematical tasks. Students are debating, critiquing the thinking of their team members and practicing building MP 1 and MP 3. You scan the room looking for your colleague and you notice they are sitting with one group, answering the team's questions, and yet... everyone else is still on task!   

This scenario is a true story.  I see this frequently when I am visiting classrooms where the teachers are utilizing Stations or Centers, a cooperative learning structure, to engage students in mathematical tasks with required math talk. In the elementary world, these are used all of the time. My best experience watching stations in action was with Mrs. Moss, my son's Kindergarten teacher.  Each team was a shape and the shapes were listed on the board in order of how the student teams needed to rotate through the stations. Talk about organization! Every student knew the expectation of each station and when to move to the next station.  Below are the basic directions for setting up stations in your classroom.  

Directions:

1. The students are placed into teams of 4.  At each group of desks or tables, there is worksheet or activity for the group to complete.  Students are given a time limit to complete the task. Teams are expected to ensure that everyone on the team understands the task and thinking needs to be visible.  
2. After the first time limit (generally 5-15 minutes per task), the team rotates to the new station.
3. Students will rotate through all stations.  
4. Optional- At each station there are answers from the previous station so that the students can check their work. 

Stations provide teacher ample time to rotate through the room and work at specific stations where the students are having more difficulties. I used this strategy for reviewing for an assessment or a chunk of material when I knew students needed time to process and apply the information.  

Engage NY has exemplar tasks and our curriculum team created this Station activity from their Module 1 materials as a review activity. 

CAUTION: The trick to planning a great station activity is to make each station the same length so teams finish around the same time. I always had to have something planned or had rich "Advancing Questions" to engage the teams that finished early. 

Student-to-student discourse: Tip #1

“You really only know what a teacher is doing when you look at what the students are doing.”

“Charlotte Danielson on Teaching and the Common Core” – an interview with Anthony Rebora,

 in Education Week, Mar. 13, 2013, http://bit.ly/1km6Axx

As I have been working with teams this year, we have been focusing on mathematical tasks and creating more opportunities for students to engage in rich math talk. The continuous hurdle that perpetuates conversation is, “HOW do we get students to have meaningful math discussions?”  Teachers are finding that students have never been required to engage in math talk.  When teachers ask students, “turn and talk to your partner/team”, students are not sure where to start. 

This week, I am teaching a professional growth course on Standard 2: Content Knowledge for our new evaluation instrument.  As we were exploring the elements, the structure of student discourse was a topic of discussion. The following questions emerged:

• How do you get the students to want to talk to each other? 
• How do you make sure that they are on topic? 
• What tasks promote better math talk? 
• How do you engage the entire “Team of 4” to complete the task?

The teachers participating in this course are tackling these questions in the next few weeks and I thought I would share these tips via the blog so all math teachers can participate (your very own little PLN). 

Tip #1:  Team Roles and Norms 

When students are asked to engage in a task, team’s need structure to ensure that all students are engaged in the task.  Creating class norms for engaging in conversation is a great way to start!  Below is an example from one of our campuses:

After reviewing the expectations, student teams can use roles to structure explicit and respectful routines.  Some of my favorite roles are Task Manager, Time-keeper, Materials Manager, and Coach. Be creative! one of my colleagues used an "on-call" role to help when someone was absent. No excuses because the on-call person was there to fill in when needed.   I posted a description of the roles on the whiteboard and referred to them daily. You can create rotating roles that you only need for specific tasks or assigning roles weekly or monthly based on where students are sitting.  You can label desks with numbers, colors are cards so that students know their assigned role.  

For more information on the Elements of Cooperative Learning, Names of Roles, and group role cards, click on the highlighted words.  

Watch for upcoming tips for structures for student-to-student discourse.  

18 weeks and counting...

Kaelin- Class of 2014 

"Behave with urgency."

J. Kotter 

As I was driving in the car over winter break with my oldest daughter, she informed me she had 17 weeks till she graduated from high school.  Wow! Where did the year go...I know that she is a senior, but this specific time frame (17 sounds so small) brought a sense of urgency.  I have 17 weeks till she graduates. I have 17 weeks to capture her last few moments at home with us before she heads to college. I have 17 weeks to make sure she is ready for the next chapter in her life...

I also began thinking about the 18 weeks till the end of the 2013-2014 school year.  We have 18 weeks till we will have successfully implemented the new AZ College and Career Readiness curriculum for Geometry 1-2.  We have 18 weeks till we will have completed year 2 of the Algebra I Curriculum. We have 18 weeks to get ready for the upcoming implementation of the AZ College and Career Readiness for Algebra II.

As you are evaluating your collaborative team's progress, considering everything that you have accomplished during the first semester and planning for the next 18 weeks, what is your sense of urgency? Each PUHSD team has different priorities depending on where they are in terms of implementing the curriculum.

Algebra I (Algebra 1-2):  The Algebra teams have been hard at work implementing rich tasks and refining the revised curriculum.  We have been creating Type II and Type III PARCC-like tasks to generate ample student-to-student discourse and increase the DOK of the questions that are asked on a day-to-day basis.

Geometry:  The Geometry teams have been focusing on becoming Geometry experts with the new curriculum.  They have been learning how to utilize the Geotools to develop conceptual understanding versus procedural knowledge.  The teachers are working diligently aligning instructional supports to the "assessed standards" to ensure students are meeting the expected level of mastery of the concept and/or standards.

Algebra II (Algebra 3-4): The second year Algebra teams are transitioning to the new curriculum and new assessments next year and should be focused on developing the student's Mathematical Practices and understanding the Common Core language.

As you and your team begin the second semester of the 2013-2014 school year, identify your current status of implementation and develop a plan to address your sense of urgency.  If you need more training on rich tasks, the February Algebra and Geometry District-wide PLC meetings will be finalizing their year long explorations on mathematical tasks and lesson design.  If you need more information on how to Read like a Mathematician, Gwen Lee will be offering another course this semester (dates TBD).  If you want to know more about Standard 2: Content Knowledge, from our new evaluation document, you can still sign up for the Professional Growth course that starts this Thursday on Career Track.

Happy New Year and good luck with your pursuit to "behave with urgency" for the next 18 weeks!