Proposed theory that all students must be participating in class discussion for the benefit of all people's learning.
Teacher encounters the fact that the majority of her class hates answering for their groups. DUH! The method puts added peer pressure on to the person answering. It means you have to understand, and internalize your groups perspective and possibly differentiate it from your own on a rigid time-line. You have the opportunity to be wrong twice. Wrong in the answer given and wrong in how you understood and conveyed the discussion with your classmates.
THOUGHT: Need an exercise that people think about but are sure to get wrong to condition them to being wrong in public.
"When students are asked to give their ideas on mathematical problems, they feel that they are engaging in an intellectual act and that they have agency. "
"Teaching through class discussions is not easy; it requires a range of pedagogical practices and it stretches even the most accomplished and experienced teachers as they respond to a range of student responses in the moment.
" Studies revealed that the more successful teachers strive to involve as many students as possible, but they also enact a number of practices that maintain respect for the integrity of mathematics. These included:
- Strategically calling on particular students at times, knowing they will ask a good question or offer a helpful representation of ideas
- asking a student to hold on to a thought if it threatens to take the discussion in a direction the teachers feel will be unproductive
- asking a student who as produced interesting work to prepare something to show others
- stressing the importance of particular students' comments, using tone and emphasis to highlight certain ideas
- adding ideas, questions, and linkages between different student ideas
Students rate the presence of caring adults as the most significant factor in their involvement with school.
The factors that are import to students include:
- feeling part of a collective identity or community
- caring adults
- connectedness with the values and goals of schooling
- opportunity to demonstrate competence
- to work on cognitively demanding work.