Prompt #4: Which of the talk moves seem the most natural for you to use or see yourself using the most? Why?
After reading through the five talk moves – revoicing, asking students to restate someone else’s reasoning, asking students to apply their own reasoning to someone else’s reasoning, prompting students for further participation, and using wait time – the talk move that seems the most natural for me to use or the talk move that I see myself using the most is, revoicing. One major reasoning for why I feel I would use this talk move the most is because I already make use of it daily. Having been in the child development program at Michigan State, we were taught how to use this talk move and I have utilized it ever since. However, after reading more about this talk move in Chapter 2, I am now exposed to its positive effects it can have when teaching my students. Revoicing can help students understand what their classmates are saying and it allows them to interact with each other in a way that will continue to involve the students in clarifying their own reasoning (Chapin, O’Connor, Anderson, pg. 12). When students have the ability to clarify their own reasoning, they become independent and aware of their own thinking processes which can help with problem solving and mathematical tasks.
Not only does revoicing help the students learn how to clarify their own reasoning, but it helps us teachers understand any misconceptions that our students may have. Once a misconception is made, as teachers we can immediately help them work through those misconceptions and find a way for them to understand and/or comprehend what is really being said or happening in the lesson/activity. Also stated in Chapter 2, revoicing is, “an effective move when you understand what a student has said but aren’t sure that the other students in the class understand” (pg. 13). When one student has an idea and others might not understand what that child had to say, it is nice to have the ability to revoice their idea so that the other student’s idea can become available to others. This then in-turn creates a classroom discussion, and provides more “thinking space” as Chapin, O’Connor, and Anderson stated. “It can help all students track what is going on mathematically” (pg. 13)!
Lindsey,
ReplyDeleteI feel that all five talk moves are extremely practical, useful, and effective. I agree with you in that revoicing is already something I am familiar with and encounter on a regular basis. I frequently hear my mentor teacher say “So what I hear you saying is…” or “You’re telling me that…” after students say something in our whole group math lessons. First, I think she is doing this in order to condense and make sense of the student’s comment. Second, I think she uses revoicing to emphasize important comments from students and highlight them in front of the other students. You brought up a great point when you said, “It helps us teachers understand any misconceptions that our students may have.” However, as I’ve seen in my own first grade classroom, I feel that revoicing gives other students in the class the opportunity to understand and correct their peers’ misconceptions as well. For example, our math lessons for the last three weeks have involved looking at patterns. My mentor teacher turns over a card with the number that correlates to the number of days we’ve been in school (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4,…10). The numbers alternate red, black, red, black. She asked one student in the class what color tomorrow’s number will be since today’s number was red. The student responded “Red, because it’s the same color.” My mentor teacher revoiced, “So you’re saying that tomorrow’s number will be red because today’s number was red?” Immediately, three other hands went up. My mentor teacher called on one of the students who then jumped up to the front of the room, pointing to the number chart and explaining the pattern of red, black, red, black in front of the class.
I agree with you that re-voicing is very important move in the classroom. Being in the child development program has made that become something that I do every day in my practice as well. It does help students become aware of what other students have said and misconceptions are very important to correct. Because misconceptions are harder to correct after they have been affirmed in a child's' mind, it is important that we are aware of them and fix them. By re-voicing, teachers are able to check their understanding and then find a way to clarify understanding and give new information. The student also has a reaffirmation that you are listening to them and their self-esteem may go up because they know you are paying attention to what they say and feel. So not only does this help misconceptions disappear, it also helps to affirm in children’s' mind that they are valued and their ideas are accepted. I think this is something that more teachers should do in areas other than academics. Teaching occurs in many forms and any teaching moments that can help children socially, academically, emotionally is very important. Re-voicing is very important to me and is probably the most natural thing that I do in the classroom. I however feel though that I should work on the other talk moves more often so that I can be more comfortable with all of them and incorporate them into the classroom as often as possible.
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