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Effective Strategies for Managing Math Discussion Sessions

Enhance your math discussion skills with this session focusing on promoting learning, management skills, and purposeful discussions. Engage in group activities, reflect on discussions, and explore effective teaching methods.

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Effective Strategies for Managing Math Discussion Sessions

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  1. PD4: Managing discussion

  2. Aims of the session This session is intended to help us to: • experience discussion of mathematics; • reflect on how discussion can be used to promote learning; • explore the characteristics of purposeful discussion; • explore the management skills that are needed to implement purposeful discussion.

  3. A group activity • Decide whether each statement on the cards you have been given is always, sometimes or never true. • Stick your statement on a poster and write your explanation next to it. • If you think a statement is ‘always true’ or ‘never true’, then explain how you can be sure. • If you think a statement is ‘sometimes true’, describe all the cases when it is true and all the cases when it is false. • Make up a statement that your learners could discuss in a similar way.

  4. Always, sometimes or never true?

  5. Always, sometimes or never true?

  6. Reflect on your discussion • Who talked the most? Who spoke the least? • What was their role in the group? • Did everyone feel that all views were taken into account? • Did anyone feel threatened? If so, why? How could this have been avoided? • Did people tend to support their own views, or did anyone take up and improve someone else's suggestion? • Has anyone learnt anything? If so, how did this happen?

  7. Why is discussion rare in mathematics?

  8. What kind of talk is most helpful?

  9. Example 1: Evaluating expressions

  10. Example 2: Rail prices

  11. Ground rules for learners • Talk one at a time. • Share ideas and listen to each other. • Make sure people listen to you. • Follow on. • Challenge. • Respect each other’s opinions. • Enjoy mistakes. • Share responsibility. • Try to agree in the end.

  12. Managing a discussion • How might we help learners to discuss constructively? • What is the teacher’s role during small group discussion? • What is the purpose of a whole group discussion? • What is the teacher’s role during a whole group discussion?

  13. Teacher’s role in small group discussion • Make the purpose of the task clear. • Keep reinforcing the ‘ground rules’. • Listen before intervening. • Join in, don’t judge. • Ask learners to describe, explain and interpret. • Do not do the thinking for learners. • Don’t be afraid of leaving discussions unresolved.

  14. Purposes of whole group discussion • Learners present and report on the work they have done. • The teacher recognises ‘big ideas’ and gives them status and value. • The learning is generalised and linked to other ideas and the wider context.

  15. Teacher’s role in whole group discussion • Mainly chair or facilitate. • Direct the flow and give everyone a say. • Do not interrupt or allow others to interrupt. • Help learners to clarify their own ideas. • Occasionally be a questioner or challenger. • Introduce a new idea when the discussion is flagging. • Follow up a point of view. • Play devil’s advocate; ask provocative questions. • Don’t be a judgewho: • assesses every response with ‘yes’, ‘good’ etc; • sums up prematurely.

  16. Planning a discussion session How should you: • organise the furniture? • introduce the task? • introduce the ways of working on the task? • allocate learners to groups? • organise the rhythm of the session? • conclude the session?

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