Math Discourse

Notes from Elaine Rector, E3 School Change Coach NCTM Standards for Teaching Mathematics: Discourse In 1991, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics released the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics, which pushed the profession to develop a more constructivist and student-centered approach. Two of the six Professional Standards center on discourse. Standard 2: The Teachers' Role in Discourse The teacher of mathematics should orchestrate discourse byposing questions and tasks that elicit, engage, and challenge each student's thinking;

listening carefully to students' ideas; asking students to clarify and justify their ideas orally and in writing;

deciding what to pursue in depth from among the ideas that students bring up in discussion; deciding when and how to attach mathematical notation and language to students' ideas; deciding when to provide information, when to clarify an issue, when to model, when to lead, and when to let a student struggle with a difficulty; monitoring students' participation in discussions and deciding when and how to encourage each student to participate.

Standard 3: The Students' Role in Discourse the teacher of mathematics should promote classroom discourse in which students

listen to, respond to, and question the teacher and one another;

use a variety of tools to reason, make connections, solve problems, and communicate; initiate problems and questions; make conjectures and present solutions; explore examples and counterexamples to investigate a conjecture;

try to convince themselves and one another of the validity of particular representations, solutions, conjectures, and answers; rely on mathematical evidence and argument to determine validity.

See http://standards.nctm.org for links to these standards along with supporting material, examples, vignettes, and background information. 1

ANOTHER EXCELLENT RESOURCE: For an in-depth analysis of discourse at work in mathematics classrooms, along with video illustrations, see "Encouraging Mathematical Thinking: Discourse around a Rich Problem" by the Math Forum's Bridging Research and Practice Group at www.mathforum.org/brap/wrap/index.html

NOTES FROM BEST PRACTICES IN TEACHING MATHEMATICS Increasing Student Engagement by Teaching for
Understanding using Math Discourse 11/19 E3 workshop Everyone has wonderful ideas: unique and nurtured from Elaine Rector

Every student deserves the chance to develop and share wonderful ideas whether they are uniquely their own thoughts, or modeled responses that they have learned to use because of the teacher and student sharing that is cultivated and nurtured in the class. Students are excited when they share an Ah Ha.whether it had been previously invented to stated by someone else. By sharing a wonderful idea, worthy of further exploration and questioning, students are making sense of their own learning. All students need support to develop thinking.

Making sense of math means talking, drawing, sharing ideas both while learning and feeling frustration and when things art starting to make sense. Teachers need to provide daily opportunities for students to share their thinking:
A/B Accountability. Think-Pair-Share, Partner work with separate roles as Mathematician and Inquirer, after one student shares have all turn to a partner and tell what you heard/make sense of what somewhat else presented

Math Journal is a valuable tool in building understanding through math discourse. Students record and share big ideas from each day. Referring back to
students own notes around big ideas will provide helpful clues later on for how to proceed through some of the complexities of math. Student may not yet know how valuable the big ideas will be to them, but the teacher helps direct them to record them in their own words and pictures as well as copying what the teacher or book might provide. The extra step in writing it down for oneself is a learning process. They also record struggles, discoveries, insights and questions. With so much new math vocabulary, math understanding is enhanced when student use and know literacy strategies and apply them to math learning. Graph paper is helpful for organizing drawings and written work.

Manipulatives and Models help students increase understanding through math discourse. When students work with models they see why an answer works.
Students who do not have the specific math vocabulary can show their thinking and then label it mathematically. Manipulatives and models help students find answers for themselves and well as give them a process for getting started and working through times when they get stuck. When it makes sense because they can show it, then students will remember what they learned more readily. Drawing out the problem before starting to work on it gives students a chance to process the information, give evidence to the teacher as s/he walks around about whether they are understanding and offers a prompt for talking through their thinking with a partner. Document cameras are very helpful in providing a way for students to share their written work to the whole class and talk through their thinking.

Questioning Strategies:

Ineffective questions lead a student to use only one method, focus on the answer and ultimately stop thinking. Effective questions are used to help students work out their thinking for themselves. They ask: what if Is there another way to look at this? Can you explain what you were thinking hereWhat do you see or observe that will help you move forwardCan you predict what the answer might be and work backwardsWhat do you already know or understandWhat do you need to know to move forwardHow might you use manipulatives or models to start to further your thinking

Be Careful with Too Much Praise: Trusting students that they can make meaning for
themselves means that all students need the teacher to trust them to persevere..perseverance must be coached and struggling learners need lots of support to hang in through the disequilibrium and confusion that true learning requires. Can never clap equally for all contributions, so avoid clapping or offering statements like good answer instead show interest through further questioning and thanking every participant for sharing an idea. We can and must learn from mistakes as well as successes.

Display Student Work and Keep Public Records of Key Learning: Students

can activate prior knowledge and students who need repetition or catch-up are well served by reviews that use the initial work that was shared in previous lessons. Posting these examples around the room also reminds students of how todays lesson fits with previous work and plants the seed for how students will build on current knowledge and skills in the future. Asking students to talk with each other about what these artifacts mean, what they learned from them and any questions or confusions that stem from looking at them again, helps move students to understanding though discourse.

MATH DIALOGUE:
Dialogue
each others viewpoints and

not discussion or friendly chit chat

(reflective learning process in which group members seek to understand

assumptions through respectful sharing and listening)

Not Discussion

(telling, selling, persuading, gaining agreement on one meaning or course of action, evaluating choices and selecting the best, justifying and defending assumptions)

talk with ones friends chit chat)

Nor Conviviality (tendency or disposition to be sociable or associate and

NORMS FOR PRODUCTIVE DIALOGUE

Respect the speaker and other listeners no side-bar conversations Honor each persons right to private think time before dialogue begins Help everyones ideas to be heard and valued in an equitable manner Disagree with ideas not with the person who states them 3

It is the responsibility of each group member to uphold these norms The group leader can always be called upon to assist groups in maintaining these norms

Role Cards help groups engage in productive math dialogue

All roles need to intellectually challenging Facilitator Resource Monitor Self-Assessment Monitor Equity Monitor Groups of 4 work well for encouraging discourse Handout from first session in Eugene explains these roles

Cognitive Level of Discourse Goes Up When:

Asked to draw to show what is being asked in a math question Required to solve in more than one way Supported to Justify and Generalize

Math Discourse Resources in the Best Practice Notebook

REFLECTIVE JOURNALS
B27 Student Mathematical Discourse: What is and is not student mathematical discourse. Tools for student mathematical discourse B28 B41 B44 B47 B55 B56 B78 Student Discourse Observation Tool: Procedure/Facts, Justification, Generalization Fostering Student Reflection Social and Sociomathematical Norms Wait Time: the Miracle Pause Teacher Reflection Tool: Student Understanding, Invention, and Sense making Questioning Levels of Math-Talk

B81 B96 B97 B100 B101

Wonderful Ideas Inquiring to Understand Ideas for the Mathematician and Inquirer Mathematically Accountable Talk Eliciting Mathematically Accountable Talk

B102-3 About Disequilibrium and Equilibrium

BLACKLINE MASTERS
C4 C5 C6 C7 C8-9 C11 C21 Dyad Protocol and Guidelines Go-Around Protocols Inside-Outside Protocol Student Discourse Observation Tool Inquiring to Understand Protocol Feedback Protocol Teacher Reflection Tool: Student Understanding, Invention, and Sense making

C28-31 Math-Talk Levels Tool: (A) Questioning (B) Explaining (C) Source (D) Responsibility

PROFESSIONAL READINGS
Reading 1: Discourse That Promotes Conceptual Understanding Reading 4: Beyond Being Told Not to Tell