Reflect after reading the Introduction and Chapter 1:
Why do the types of tasks matter in math classrooms? Why is the delivery important?
Consider the following questions:
- What is resonating with you from the reading?
- What caused you to pause and think during this section?
Respond and Interact
After reading these chapters, please post your response to one {or more} of the prompts above. Read our colleagues' reflections. Feel free to respond to someone by sharing a comment, insight or interesting possibility.
In my small groups, I have often pulled warmups from different sites that will allow kids to think, problem solve, and work together to find the answer. It is magical when this happens. But there are also other times when I work 1:1 with a student, or I work with a quieter group where they are comfortable simply saying, "I don't know." I am curious to keep reading and see if there are solutions to that, or some good follow up questions that help students come out of that thought process and into an attempt to figure it out. I can say for certain, however that I have witnessed those times where we did the "I do, we do, you do" where I did not get the participation I was looking for.
ReplyDeleteI like that chapter one talked about the downfall of focusing on teaching strictly in line with the curriculum and not giving students a chance to delve into higher-level thinking. The idea of moving towards a "Thinking Classroom" that gives students the chance to think deeply sounds like a fantastic idea but also like a shift that might take a bit of time. A line that made me stop and think was "...norms that have not changed since the inception of an industrial-age model of public education" (Page 12). Reading this and the section that followed made me reflect on the practices I use in my own teaching, and what I do because it's what's best for the kids and what I do because it's just "the way it's always been done". Pairing that with the fact that we are incorporating new curriculum this year allows for a unique chance to change some of the "norms".
ReplyDeleteSo many things resonated with me as I read the introduction and chapter 1 and thought about my own 5th grader and 1st grade students. All of the students described in the introduction were definitely in my class - slacking, stalling, faking, mimicking and trying it on their own. Depending on the topic, I think I was definitely any of those students at one point or another. I am guilty of the teach and now you try one approach and to be honest found that it didn't address the needs of ALL of my students which left me feeling frustrated with my teaching practices. A few students went "rogue" which I found refreshing and found other strategies or used previous strategies that worked for them. This quote was a good reminder, "Good problem solving tasks require students to get stuck and then to think, to experiment, to try and to fail, and to apply their knowledge in novel ways in order to get unstuck." Opportunities to problem solve, patience and time is key. I am looking forward to learning more.
ReplyDeleteI also feel like so much of this intro. and chapter resonated with me. Reflecting back to my own experience as a student and also my time as an educator, I see the value in creating a "thinking classroom". Knowing exactly what to do when you encounter a problem creates some temporary confidence and can ease anxiety, but it doesn't set you up to be a life long learner or problem solver. I liked the reminder that problem solving is a messy, non-linear, and idiosyncratic and the importance of creating a space where that is expected, safe, and acceptable. I appreciated the FAQ section at the end of the chapter because it addressed many of the wonderings I also had while reading. Time always seems to be the obstacle we are up against and feel the most confined by. However, knowing that this type of teaching sets students up to become more independent problem solvers that can get "unstuck" makes it so important to approach math this way. I wish I would have had more of this type of environment to learn in as a student because it would have made my math experience so much more beneficial!
ReplyDeleteThe section about student behaviors and how students are “studenting” really caused me to stop and think specifically about the students that appear to do well in class but when they took the test, they would struggle. Unable to use any strategy that might lead them to the correct answer. During class, they would watch what their teammate was doing and mimic those steps, thus not really thinking or learning the skill. In chapter 1, it states, “Good problem-solving tasks require students to get stuck…” This is challenging for most students. They don’t like the feelings that come with not knowing how to do something. Learning to problem-solve or think through different ways to solve a problem is an important growth mindset goal. Learning to be uncomfortable with what we don’t yet know how to do.
ReplyDeleteAmy, we talk about this disconnect between class work and assessments a lot. I agree that students often mimic others and are not fully engaged in their own reasoning, or are not using strategies that will lead them to engage in productive struggle that eventually leads to a successful outcome.
DeleteWhat resonated with me is the section explaining, "studenting". I had never heard this term used before but after learning his definition, it made me think about my own classroom and which of my students were actually doing the thinking and which students were not doing the thinking. Activities in the new math allowed students to try a task with absolutely no help or teaching from me. Within my class maybe 5 students actually used thinking and could come up with a method to solve a problem, while the remainder of the students were 'studenting'. Many were stalling before trying anything, by looking around or pretending to talk with their partner, some were faking and were doing something that made no sense at all, and others began to mimic their peers by looking at their boards and then trying out a method they thought the others were doing. Many did not know how to think and are so used to being told what to do that it was difficult to try something without any teaching or modeling prior. This was very uncomfortable for them and the students were afraid of making a mistake. As the year progressed, and students figured out that this was how a lesson flowed, more began to think from the beginning but still not all.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I thought about the warm ups before each IM lesson, and some of those are non curricular, while others are curricular or build upon a concept that will be taught later on, almost as if it is a way of pre-teaching. All of the warms up are highly engaging and the students' favorite part of the lesson. They couldn't wait to see what type of warm up it was going to be. I am wondering if these are the micro moves??
I was nodding as he was describing the "studenting" behaviors. I also felt convicted when I read, "Thinking is a necessary precursor to learning, and if students are not thinking, then they are not learning." It reminded me of so many math lessons where I just stood up there and asked kids to do what I was doing. They weren't thinking at all - they were just mimicking me. 😳 I hope they had a better teacher somewhere down the road. lol.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I teach K now, the intro and Chapter 1 really brought me back to when I was teaching 3rd grade. I was working with a few professors from UW that were trying to implement real world problems and cultural ideas into open ended problems. I was very skeptical that my 8 and 9 year olds would be able to come up with solutions and the list of studenting behaviors resonated with me because I knew that I was going to see all of these!
ReplyDeleteYet, the part in Chapter 1 that talked about the right type of task is important really is true!
The first task I presented to my 3rd graders revolved around the new Disney Movie Coco. Students knew the movie and we talked about the cultral of the pictures, candles, and importance of the Day of the Dead. Students then were presented with a task on making their own picture frames from posicle sticks. after a few micro tasks, students were asked how much material we would need to buy for our whole class to make one frame.
It was amazing to see how fast they went to work. These were the kids I could barely get to finish a few problems. They were working together, drawing, skeching, adding, multiplying and within no times the came together to present how much materials they would need.
Oh and did I mention that these were labeled "at risk" kiddos?
We went on with tasks like these at least once a month and some were more successful than others, but taught me more than any methods course had.
I love that IM has brought some of these same tasks into their warm ups and I am excited that now in Kindergarten, we can provide a good beginning in building a thinking classroom early on in hopes to build those stronger thinking skills as they grow.
What resonated with me in the first section of the book is when they shared the percentages of student non-thinking behaviors. We see these types of behaviors with our students in small groups often. The book talks about students who slack and don't do their work, others who mimic peers, or who fake what they are doing. While still others who will stall long enough to wait for teacher to tell them what to do. Finally, we have a small percent of students that will actually engage and try to do the work on their own. You can really see who is actually engage in thinking and reasoning or who is not. I look forward reading more about how to increase the percentages of students who try to do the work and engage in reasoning.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the introduction and the first chapter the five non-thinking student behaviors really resonated with me. After teaching a math strategy, then doing the I do, we do, you do model I saw all of these behaviors on a daily basis during my lessons. Some students were great at mimicking the strategy, while others struggled to follow along or waited until we went over how to solve it. The idea of starting the learning with a highly engaging non-curricular task makes it so that all students can have a jumping off point and can access the task. It also gives them an opportunity to work with their peers and collaborate. I can see how this could build their confidence and curiosity as we switch back to curricular activities. I know that IM does a lot of highly engaging tasks/questions so I am excited to see how students react to these, especially those students who have struggled with math in the past.
ReplyDeleteThe term "studenting" made my mind ponder. I had not heard this term before, and it totally makes sense after reading this section. I connected to the studenting norms from when I was a student and experiences as a teacher. I liked the quote from page five that says, "If students aren't thinking, they are not learning." Peter Liljedahl's math book reminds me of concepts in the ELA book Who's Donig the Work? How to Say Less So Readers Can Do More by Burkins and Yaris. Their concepts build student confidence.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading the introduction and learning about the five types of studenting behaviors, I was considering my class before I began teaching our new math curriculum. I could picture actual students and think of percentages of kids doing each behavior. I concluded that a majority of my class would be considered mimickers and my suspicions were confirmed when I flipped the page to see the pie chart. Of course, at the time, I wasn't aware of how little student thinking was actually happening in my math block. I prided myself on the various strategies my students implemented when problem solving, all which were displayed on an anchor chart not too far from where they were sitting and were just taught to them moments or days before. I loved teaching math; I felt successful, the majority of my students had "mastered" the concepts, and the assessments, taken the day after the reviews, confirmed these notions that I had a class full of mathematicians and problem solvers who would be ready for second grade. However, I specifically remember teachers, myself included, complain when something on the assessment didn't match the way students had practiced (mimicked:) it in our lessons...how dare we try to trick them on their math assessment! Now, I see why I would walk by second grade classrooms and see some of my star mathematicians struggling with comparison bars when they had that strategy down in first grade, how could that be? This introduction made me beyond eager to read the rest of the book. It feels like even more evidence to confirm just WHY we adopted our new math curriculum, and I can't wait to make both micro and macro moves to support a thinking classroom!
ReplyDeleteMany parts of this chapter resonated with me. As a student myself I was not very good at math, but I was very good at "studenting", making my way through math class by faking and mimicking. I was able to get through all of my schooling without ever really knowing how to do high level math.
ReplyDeleteAll these years later, most educators are still using curriculum that is teaching students these "studenting" behaviors. I model a problem, they mimic it. Several years ago I participated in a math PD that encouraged teachers to make their math block more engaging - utilizing a more centers based approach as well as concrete experiences, such as counting collections. I am excited to read this book and learn more about how to create a thinking classroom.
The intro and first chapter had a lot to start thinking about. I thought a lot about my time as a student in math class and how much time was split up between slacking, stalling, faking, mimicking and actually trying on my own. I remember a lot of non-thinking especially in certain subjects. Thinking to my class I can see some of these things even in kindergarten when students are not sure what to do or how to get started and I end up repeating myself many times. I am excited that the book will be giving some micro ideas and macro ideas so that I can start small and see what works.
ReplyDelete