In my opinion it can be hard for English language learners. I've seen my students struggle considerably in this portion. Some will provide great answers but others will resort to simple explanations that offer little insight to their thinking. Ex. "He didn't get the right answer because he he didn't do it right." Should we hold them accountable to providing explanations for their thinking? Yes! They should be able to tell what they did. It shows that they understand a given situation and that they are not resorting to memorizations of algorithms.
Whether I'm right or wrong id like to offer a solution: We need to understand what is developmentally appropriate for children when it comes to providing explanations. I feel that many of the questions that are being asked in the curriculum and at the state assessment level are way above our students heads. Through studies and professional learning communities we can get a better view of this issue.
I have experienced the same types of frustrations in my own classroom. I have often reflected on my own experiences with math growing up and remember thinking I was no good at it. I believe then and even more so now that we attempt to have all students master complex math concepts that they are just not cognitively ready for.
ReplyDeleteIn the Ed week special there is a nice discussion of the issues for English Learners. I have to agree, it seems that some of the expectations are too abstract for my 4th/5th graders. Word problems, out of context with their real and very visual world, is really difficult.
ReplyDeleteI have always asked my students how do they know their answer is correct, so most of my students are familiar with justifying their answer. However, they don't always use the academic language when explaining how they arrived at the answer and common core requires students to use the academic language. So it is going to be quite the challenge to teach students to articulate how they reached a solution using the academic vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteI was talking about this with my co-workers this week. I have found that many of the students try to manage to solve the problem. But what is keeping them from getting a good "score" is that they are not using the academic vocabulary while explaining how they got their answers. In my opinion, if they solved the problem that should be evidence enough to show that they understand the concept.
ReplyDelete