"Educators’ observations and their conversations with students provide them with rich insight into the strategies that students are using and how effectively they are applying them. Conversations reveal whether students understand how they are performing computations and whether their answers make sense to them."
– Focusing on the Fundamentals of Math – A Teacher’s Guide, p.4
After Anticipating what students might do, Monitoring student responses involves paying close attention to student thinking and strategies as they work to solve the task. Students may interact with each other and the educator in different ways (described below) as educators use their observations to decide what and whom to focus on in the discussion that follows.
During a lesson, "turn and talk" is a non-intimidating place for students to consider one another’s ideas, articulate their own thinking, question shaky reasoning, and prepare to participate in a whole group discussion. To use turn and talk effectively, educators have to tell less to and ask more of their students. As educators observe, they can listen to student ideas and consider the strategies they are using. Educators may ask questions to assess student understanding and move their thinking forward.
Monitoring Circulating while students work
Recording interpretations, strategies, other ideas in order to consider the student's thinking. Educators may want to correct or redirect, but in this work, it's best to monitor in order to see what they can do and the questions educators ask would be to clarify to determine what the student is showing.
“Good questions don’t replace careful listening ... “Circulating as students work in pairs or groups, teachers often arrive in the middle of an activity. Too often they immediately ask children to explain what they are doing. Doing so may not only be distractive but may also cause teachers to miss wonderful moments for assessment. Listening carefully first is usually more helpful, both to find out how students are thinking and to observe how they are interacting."
(Storeygard, Hamm, & Fosnot, 2010)
Monitoring Student Solutions: Here are some sample student responses from the book
Monitoring is an active process. As students respond to questions they need to clarify their thinking, refine their strategy and be able to communicate their work more clearly during the discussion. When students work, educators take detailed notes in order to demonstrate student thinking: what the student was saying, and doing and what you, the educator, are noticing the potential for math learning in any of those responses.
The authors offer another way to make these observations, using a tracking sheet for student responses prepared prior to the lesson and then, when observing, make notes about them (see figure 1.1, page 9). In the problem with the Leaves and Caterpillars, it may be helpful to track responses that were anticipated as well as mathematical goals for the lesson. We can take a look at this in the next practice of "Selecting."