Smith has some great points about how to shape class
discussions so that they unfold nicely for learning.
It is important to anticipate student responses. This is
something that I am still weak in, just because I have not been teaching very
long.
Monitoring the student work as they are working helps keep
students working and helps when deciding who to call on during group
discussions. I try to point out different methods of doing the same problem. I
also don’t want to embarrass people when they do not have the right answer, so
I will be especially careful about calling on the students who sort of hide in
class, and I will make sure I call on them when I know they have the correct
answer or correct method so that I can boost their confidence.
I have not thought much about the sequencing of student
responses. The furthest I have considered is calling on lower performing
students more in the beginning so that they can participate. I think the Smith
article points out that teachers need to pay even more attention and plan ahead
of time how they want to student discussion and learning to unfold.
In the selected reading from the text one sentence hit home,
“the geometry curriculum in the United
States has been somewhat of an eclectic mix
of activities and lists of “bold print words” –too much emphasis has been
placed on learning terminology.” I think memorizing words does have a lot of
emphasis. I don’t want to say that it’s not important, it is, but the language
is just a tool to talk about the math, it shouldn’t be the focus. The van Hiele
levels could be useful when teaching, but I don’t really think that a teacher
needs to know what number level a student is at, it all seemed pretty common
sense to me, and just extra educational categories that the educational people
like to construct.
I can see your point about van Hiele - and it can be overwhelming to really memorize and use it in action. The point is, however, to build in analysis/thinking activities for students in addition to activities that focus on defining terms accurately.
ReplyDeleteOne big point for me when I read the discussion article is how planning is an intellectual endeavor, not just listing what will be done and the sequence in which things will be completed. Planning is considering what students might do and how you will build from what students do to highlight the main points.