Uncovering Student Thinking
01/16/24 • 33 min
In this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie consider ways to uncover how students are actually thinking about the mathematics they are learning. Using a real-life, recent incident between Curtis and his sixth grade son, our hosts consider the challenging fact that many students think that success in math class means figuring out what answer the teacher (or the computer program/app, or the back of the book) is looking for.
They posit that when educators are always focused on the mathematics of the moment – what is being learned in a single lesson, week, or unit – we can focus students on the smaller grain size ideas instead of helping them to place their learning in the bigger picture of mathematics as a whole. As always, the episode recognizes that teachers work very hard at a very complex task: teaching young minds to deeply understand important mathematics!
We encourage you to explore the resources below, referenced in this episode:
- “Listening to and Learning from Student Thinking,” by Elham Kazemi, Lynsey K. Gibbons, Kendra Lomax, and Megan L. Franke from Teaching Children Mathematics, October 2016.
- “Making Student Thinking Public,” by Shari Stockero and Laura R. Van Zoest from The Mathematics Teacher, May 2011.
- “Attending to Evidence of Students’ Thinking during Instruction,” by Miriam Gamoran Sherin and James Lynn, from Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, May 2019.
- The Five Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematical Discussions by Margaret Smith and Mary Kay Stein, ISBN: 978-1-68054-016-1
Did you enjoy this episode of Room to Grow? Please leave a review and share the episode with others. Share your feedback, comments, and suggestions for future episode topics by emailing [email protected]. Be sure to connect with your hosts on Twitter and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy.
In this episode of Room to Grow, Curtis and Joanie consider ways to uncover how students are actually thinking about the mathematics they are learning. Using a real-life, recent incident between Curtis and his sixth grade son, our hosts consider the challenging fact that many students think that success in math class means figuring out what answer the teacher (or the computer program/app, or the back of the book) is looking for.
They posit that when educators are always focused on the mathematics of the moment – what is being learned in a single lesson, week, or unit – we can focus students on the smaller grain size ideas instead of helping them to place their learning in the bigger picture of mathematics as a whole. As always, the episode recognizes that teachers work very hard at a very complex task: teaching young minds to deeply understand important mathematics!
We encourage you to explore the resources below, referenced in this episode:
- “Listening to and Learning from Student Thinking,” by Elham Kazemi, Lynsey K. Gibbons, Kendra Lomax, and Megan L. Franke from Teaching Children Mathematics, October 2016.
- “Making Student Thinking Public,” by Shari Stockero and Laura R. Van Zoest from The Mathematics Teacher, May 2011.
- “Attending to Evidence of Students’ Thinking during Instruction,” by Miriam Gamoran Sherin and James Lynn, from Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, May 2019.
- The Five Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematical Discussions by Margaret Smith and Mary Kay Stein, ISBN: 978-1-68054-016-1
Did you enjoy this episode of Room to Grow? Please leave a review and share the episode with others. Share your feedback, comments, and suggestions for future episode topics by emailing [email protected]. Be sure to connect with your hosts on Twitter and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy.
Previous Episode
Deep Mathematical Thinking Using Math Milestones Tasks
In this episode of Room to Grow, special guests Sandra Lightman and John Staley help Joanie and Curtis understand the Math Milestones. These one-page resources include 12-14 math tasks that provide a visualization of and engagement with the math standards of each grade. The Math Milestones tasks present grade level math, not as a list of standards or learning outcomes, but as a groups of math tasks, a language understood by teachers and students.
The Math Milestones project was supported by Student Achievement Partners with Sandra and John as critical members of the team. The resources, available for free online, include a set of teacher notes that support using these tasks to better understand the math of each grade level, and to engage educators in conversations that get to the depth of the intended learning. Additional work is being done to provide “asset maps,” resources that allow educators to use student work and responses to the Math Milestones tasks to better understand and build upon students’ strengths.
We encourage you to explore the resources below, referenced in this episode:
- Learn more about the Math Milestones project on their website HERE
- Find the grade level grids (sets of tasks) HERE
- Review the teacher notes for each grade level HERE
- Explore additional resources to support teaching the standards from Student Achievement Partners
Did you enjoy this episode of Room to Grow? Please leave a review and share the episode with others. Share your feedback, comments, and suggestions for future episode topics by emailing [email protected] . Be sure to connect with your hosts on Twitter and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy.
Next Episode
A conversation with the National Teacher of the Year
In this episode of Room to Grow, our hosts share conversation with Rebecka Peterson, the 2023 National Teacher of the Year (NTOY). Rebecka is a high school math teacher at Union High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on leave for the 2023-24 school year to fulfill her NTOY responsibilities. She views the NTOY not as an award, but rather a job, that of spokesperson and ambassador for the teaching profession.
In this conversation, we learn about her teaching journey and the lessons she learned along the way that have shaped her focus in the classroom. She shares how she focuses on connections with students – connections to each other, to school, to the content, and to their communities. She reflects on current struggles facing math education systems, and her belief that choice could drive better student engagement, more student learning, and less teacher burnout.
We encourage you to explore the resources below, referenced in this episode:
- Learn more about the National Teacher of the Year program HERE
- See Rebecka’s NCTM Handout with more detail about her “Connections” talk and resources she uses in her own classroom
- Learn more about Explore Mathematics by Sam Shah, mentioned by Rebecka
- Learn more about Rebecka’s End-of-unit creative summary project
- Visit Rebecka’s NTOY webpage HERE
- Connect with and learn more about Rebecka Peterson
- Instagram - @Rebeckapeterson_
- X (formerly Twitter) - @RebeckaMozdeh
- Medium blog - medium.com/@rebeckapeterson
Did you enjoy this episode of Room to Grow? Please leave a review and share the episode with others! Share your feedback, comments, and suggestions for future episode topics by emailing [email protected].
Be sure to connect with your hosts on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy.
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