Seminar 4 Blog Post: Reading Summaries

Chapin, S. H., O’Connor, C., and Anderson, N. C. (2009). Classroom discussions: Using math talk to help students learn. Sausalito, CA: Math Solutions. Chapter 9 – Planning Lessons

This chapter walks us through how to plan effective lessons. Such lesson plans include: identifying the mathematical goals, anticipating confusion, asking questions, and planning the implementation. It describes the importance of using discussion (and different talk formats) to teach mathematical concepts and being open to altering your lesson to respond to what students know or don’t know. To conclude the lesson, summarizing what occurred in the lesson is important in order to solidify students’ understanding.

Stein, M. K. (2001) Mathematical argumentation: Putting the umph into classroom discussion. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School. 7(2), 110‐112.

This article describes a real life example of classroom discussion used in a middle school mathematics class. Providing a more open-ended problem allowed individual students to determine the solution method that worked best for them. Then, the teacher facilitated a whole-class discussion in which the correct solution and a common incorrect solution were both presented. It was up to the students to present their arguments, defend their methods, and then decide which is correct. Overall, the teacher used classroom discussion to let students inquire about math.

Atkins, S. (1999, January). Listening to students: The power of mathematical conversations. Teaching Children Mathematics, 289‐295.

This article discussed a classroom in which the teacher is not the sole source of knowledge. Students can teach each other and learn from one another as well. It focused on the importance of using classroom discussion and student-led mathematical conversation as a tool to promote higher-level thinking in our students.

Kazemi, E. (1998, March). Discourse that promotes conceptual understanding. Teaching Children Mathematics, 410‐414

This article talks about ways to promote deeper-level thinking among our students (we must find a happy medium between rote memorization and fun exploration). Again, students were given a problem that allowed the possibility of several open-ended solution methods. After working in groups to solve the problem, each came up with a different strategy and could present and justify it to the class. Then, students could “practice articulating their thinking” by discussing and exploring correct and incorrect solutions (p. 413).