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Facilitating discussions
Posted:
Apr 14, 1999 5:01 PM
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Deciding what my role as a teacher is in Investigations has been a
challenge for me this year. Being that this is my first year using
the program and the first year that I have had a significant number of
learning disabled students in my room, I have had to frequently
reflect on my teaching methods. One of the areas that I have focused
on is my questioning techniques. I have concentrated on not asking
leading questions. Rather, my role is to facilitate discussion and to
help students communicated their strategies. This is not always easy
to do, especially when a student is on the right track to the correct
answer but isn't sure which route to take next. I have found that
when I give my students the chance to investigate on their own, often
they surprise me.
There are times when I do intervene with student discussion or
activites. This tends to be when a student is really off task or if a
student (particularly an learning disabled student) is having
difficulty with a written portion of the activity. However, I find
that if I don't intervene, often another student will step in and help
those not sure of what to do.
Encouraging effective discussion is an important part of this program.
One way that I have been able to do this is to create a climate in my
classroom that allows for students to freely share their strategies
and not be afraid of what others may think. This way students can
learn from each other and become a community of mathematicians.
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