Communicating about MatheMatics

This year, I have incorporated more explicit turn & talks into my lesson plans. (Ie. With your partner, discuss how this equation is different from the other equations we have seen in class).  On average, about half of my students actually discussed with their partner during these turn & talks.  I’ve found that students have more sustained discussions during project work time (example: students determining if their baseball hit will score in the Red Sox stadium).  I think the main reason for this centers around the why.  

     When I tell them to ‘turn and talk’ about something their reason for discussing is because I told them too.  When they have organic discussions during project work time, their reason for discussing is they want support in figuring something out- their discussing because they see the need, not because I told them to.  The biggest downside to these organic discussions is that not all students participate- they pop up when/where they pop up, which isn’t in every group yet alone with every student.  This has led me to begin thinking of how to plan my lessons to spark more of these organic student-led discussions. 

      Last week, students were working on the Savings Account Project.  I tried something new on Friday.  As usual, Amber and I collected their work on Thursday to look for common misconceptions. Students were discovering continuously compounding interest.  Most students were struggling with creating tables that were precise/accurate enough to clearly show the pattern.  Only five students had done this correctly.  Usually, Amber and I create homogenous groups working on the same skill.  But we decided to try something different.  I divided the room into 5 groups, and assigned one student who created their table correctly to each group.  At the start of the period, I told each group that this person was their table captain- and the only student in their group who had completed the table correctly.  Their task for the period was to fix their table, and rely on their table captain for help.  Over the course of the period, every group has a productive, sustained conversation about how to correctly fill out the table, and the patterns within the table.  This was one of the first times I had 100% of my groups engaged in productive discussion.  I think this is because I created an environment where they clearly saw the why- their work wasn’t correct, and they had someone sitting next to them who could help them fix it.  Moving forward I want to try to do more lesson planning like this- instead of forcing turn & talks at specific times about specific questions, or just leaving project work time to develop organically, I’ll structure project work time to make talking with peers about math to be useful, purposeful & meaningful.   When I have time, I also want to set up a word wall that I can point to to push students to use more mathematical vocabulary in their discussions.