Thinking Strategies in Math

When planning for our math, I think about what thinking strategies I can pull into our lesson. Many times thinking strategies are used in reading but can be so helpful in math. When I realize what strategies I may use, I try to think about the problem from a kid's perspective and how they can use these strategies to solve problems. I will model this during the lessons, as I think aloud about what students are solving. Examples include visualizing the problem, using our schema to understand word problems, or even steps to take. In our 5th grade class, we use synthesizing a lot, to determine how our thinking has changed during the day/week. This also helps the students see how math connects from class to class and year to year.

Synthesizing Process, How does this impact student learning? What benefits have you seen?

Many times the students start lessons by noticing & wondering based on what they see. This can be in reading, math, and even social studies. As we continue to learn, students reflect on their learning. Many times I will ask them questions such as "How has your thinking changed since the beginning of our unit?" A couple of examples- In math, when we learned how to divide a decimal by a 2 digit divisor, students were able to connect their thinking from our original division unit. Some students were able to use their schema and problem solve when they saw the math problem, while others needed to hear my thinking in order to make the connection. In social studies, students begin by looking at pictures or a word and share their thinking, by the end of the unit or lesson, I ask them what they had learned and connect it back to the picture we started with at the beginning of the class. Many times they can use sentence starters such as "My thinking has changed because ___" or "At first I thought ___ and now I think ___ because ___."