5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions Author: Margaret Schwan Smith Mary Kay Stein | Language: English | ISBN:
0873536770 | Format: EPUB
5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions Description
Review
5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions provides teachers with concrete guidance for engaging students in discussions that make the mathematics in classroom lessons transparent to all. These instructional practices are extremely timely in light of the focus on Standards for Mathematical Practice in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics,band they will support teachers and students in engaging in these standards. This book will serve as a valuable foundation in our upcoming professional development. --Catherine Martin, Mathematics and Science Director 2011-04-15)
Ensuring that students have the opportunity to reason mathematically is one of the most difficult challenges that teachers face. A key component is creating a classroom in which discourse is encouraged and leads to better understanding. Productive discourse is not an accident, nor can it be accomplished by a teacher working on the fly, hoping for a serendipitous student exchange that contains meaningful mathematical ideas. While acknowledging that this type of teaching is demanding, Smith and Stein present five practices that any teacher can use to implement
coherent mathematical conversations. By using the five practices, teachers will learn to teach effectively in this way. --Frederick Dillon, Mathematics Teacher
As a veteran teacher, I found that the book diagnosed several problems that I had unknowingly created for my students' classroom discussions. I now have a prescription for curing these problems. --Lori Lovato
- Paperback: 104 pages
- Publisher: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics; First edition (April 15, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0873536770
- ISBN-13: 978-0873536776
- Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
This well-written book will be useful for any math teacher looking for a way to move from superficial classroom discussions to ones that actually help students advance their understanding of mathematics. The authors do this by describing their Five Practices, and then demonstrating their usefulness by presenting five different classroom vignettes and pointing out how the Practices are (or could be) used to conduct good discussions.
The Five Practices (Anticipating, Monitoring, Selecting, Sequencing, and Connecting) are intended to be used in lessons in which the students are working together in small groups to complete some mathematical task, and a class-wide discussion is expected to be the culminating event of the lesson. The Practices specifically identify the things that the teacher will be doing before the lesson (Anticipating), during the group work part (Monitoring, Selecting, and Sequencing), and during the discussion itself (Connecting).
The authors open with a vignette of a teacher conducting a math lesson which ends with a class discussion, one which will look familiar to any math teacher. When I first read it I remember thinking that the teacher had done a pretty good job, but the authors then describe their Five Practices and point out some ways the lesson fell short, and I began to realize that there were a lot of things the teacher could have done much better.
The authors then use the remaining vignettes to highlight specific things about each individual Practice, pointing out things that the individual teachers did well, how those things contributed to a productive discussion and increased mathematical understanding for their students, and how the reader can use the Five Practices in their own lessons.
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