Math Congress

1. Math Congress

2. WHAT is Math Congress? • Math Congress is a mathematics instructional strategy developed by Fosnot and Dolk (2002). • The purpose of the congress is to support the development of mathematicians in the classroom learning community rather than fixing mistakes in the children’s work • A congress enables the teacher to focus the students on reasoning about a few big mathematical ideas derived from the mathematical thinking present in students’ solutions • It focuses whole class discussion on two or three, strategically selected, student solutions in order to develop every student’s mathematical learning

3. What is important to know about math congress? • Math congress is built upon the belief that knowledge emerges in a community of activity, discourse, and reflection • Teachers encourage students to explore, notice patterns, develop efficient strategies, and generalize ideas • Learning happens through ongoing investigation developed within contexts and situations that enable students to engage in mathematics • The Math Congress provides a forum in which students communicate their ideas, solutions, problems, proofs, and conjectures

4. Preparing for the Math Congress • Students: • Pairs of students make chart paper size posters of their solutions • Students require time to record their solutions • Students will discuss with their partner what they plan to share with the rest of the class

5. Preparing for the Math Congress • Teacher: • During this time, the teacher notes students’ use of mathematical strategies and ideas in preparation for the Math Congress • The teacher imagines the whole class discussion through the following questions: • What mathematical ideas and strategies in the posters should be discussed? • How do these ideas and strategies relate to student learning of the lesson learning goal, as well as build on previous mathematical discussions? • Which ideas and strategies can be generalized? How might mathematical generalization be provoked? • What is a possible sequence for the discussion of the posters, so that it serves as a scaffold for learning?

6. Mini-Congress • Students share their work within their small groups, check answers and strategies, and ask question to provoke clarification/elaboration • All students share their strategies, listen to the ideas of others, question what they do not understand and defend their thinking • It may be beneficial to have one student in each group facilitate the discussion to ensure that all strategies are shared and that everyone in the group has contributed to the discussion as well

7. Facilitating the Math Congress • The whole class gathers to discuss strategies presented by two or three pairs of students • Students support their mathematical thinking as the teacher guides the whole class discussion toward important mathematical ideas and strategies. • Questions the teacher may pose during the discussion: • How is this strategy similar to and different from the first solution presented? • Will this strategy always work? How do you know? • When will this strategy not work? Why not?

8. Assessment for Learning • Planning for next steps: • Plan a related problem for another lesson based on the areas of student learning that ‘need improvement’ • Create and use a student tracking sheet to record which strategies students are using and the ways students are thinking about the mathematics.

9. An example of Math Congress http://www.contextsforlearning.com/samples/SessionWalkthrough.pdf

10. Resources http://gains-camppp.wikispaces.com/file/view/3+High+Yield+Strategies+in+Math.pdf http://www.contextsforlearning.com/ http://www.contextsforlearning.com/samples.asp http://www.contextsforlearning.com/samples/SessionWalkthrough.pdf http://www.contextsforlearning.com/samples/46SampSessionFINAL.pdf http://www.contextsforlearning.com/samples/46OverviewTeachLearn.pdf http://www.heinemann.com/shared/onlineresources/E00898/journey1.pdf