Prompt #3: Looking at your case study, how did student talk deepen the teacher’s understanding of his/her students’ thinking?
Case 2 describes a first grade teacher’s use of student talk to help her teach geometric shapes. Specifically, Mrs. Sigler’s first grade class is learning about what makes a shape a triangle. During the first day of her lesson she had students work in small groups to sort shapes into two categories—triangles and other. As she made her way around the room, stopping to work with individual groups, she noticed that most children were only placing equilateral triangles in the ‘triangle’ group and putting isosceles and scalene triangles with other shapes in the ‘other’ group. After talking with one group and asking children to defend their choices, it was clear that their understanding of triangles was limited. Most classified their shapes as triangles because “it just looks right.” From asking each student in the group to think out loud, Mrs. Sigler learned that they were relying on limited previous knowledge about triangles (i.e. seeing the shape on a poster in the classroom) and had little or no understanding of the actual properties of triangles. It’s important to note that the teacher asked each child to speak and elaborate on one another’s thinking in order to assess each student’s beliefs; she wasn’t correcting them or leading them to new understanding.
Through the student talk Mrs. Sigler facilitated, she gained a deeper understanding of her students’ thinking and could adjust the following day’s math lesson appropriately. In particular, she learned that she needed to focus on the generalization that all three-sided shapes are triangles. As a result, during the whole class lesson the following day, Mrs. Sigler spent a lot of time making sure her students understood this, as evidenced by her asking students (with different looking triangles) to share their shape and number of sides (always 3) with the class. This helped students make the connection with all triangles and three sides.
One aspect of this case study that I found particularly helpful was the emphasis on understanding your students’ prior knowledge. I feel that this is a very important aspect of teaching and often it is what guides your lessons and instruction. This case study also helps to show just how much some people and teacher assume that their students know a particular aspect of a subject. If Mrs. Sigler was to not walk around and look at her students’ work, she would have not been able to adjust the following day’s math lesson appropriately. This is something that teachers always have to be open to, so that their students will understand and comprehend the lessons completely. I also like how Mrs. Sigler asked each child to speak and elaborate on one another’s thinking in order to assess each student’s beliefs. I feel that this creates a more relaxed and open whole-class discussion. When students are able to talk to one another as opposed to just the teacher, they in-turn will feel more important and a part of the classroom community. I know that in our first grade classroom we have not made use of the whole-class discussion as I would like to, with having the students add-on to and comment on their classmates statements, however we do make use of turning to a partner and discussing their thoughts prior to sharing aloud to the whole class. I am wondering what your first grade classroom discussions look like? And also if you do anything that helps you and your teacher get a feel for your students’ prior knowledge? I know that for math we starting to give the students pre-assessments prior to the units to get an idea of where the students are at so that we can plan accordingly, does your class take a pre-assessment at all?
ReplyDeleteThis was very interesting. I would not have thought that a triangle would have been confused because of the different properties. I believe that assessment while doing an activity is very important because teachers need to know what students understand and what they need help learning. If she would not have walked around the room and found out information from her students, she would have continued teaching and may not have gone back to this subject again. This is one lesson for a teacher that you cannot assume that your students are at a certain place academically. It is important that you know your students academically and ways to incorporate all academic levels into your lesson plans. It is also important to be flexible when planning because you have to adjust to your students’ needs. Although we have a curriculum to attend to and GLCE’s to teach, it is important that students really grasp the concepts and are not just sneaking by without truly understanding. In my teaching, I believe that it is important to emphasize the quality of understanding rather than the quantity of teaching that you are doing.
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