While I try to think of myself as a facilitator when it
comes to mathematics instruction and I try to be the least helpful that I can
be and let my students problem solve on their own, I really struggle with not
taking over students thinking. While I read this article and the dialogue
between the teacher and the student I kept thinking to myself, “Yup. I’ve done
that.” This is especially true when I
see students that have no clue how to solve the problem or are just completely
off track. I want to steer them in the right direction so badly that sometimes
I just take the wheel all together.
I think my ingrained reaction to assist stems from the idea
of the educator as the source of all knowledge and the students as recipients. I
remember that when I was growing up the only reason my teacher probed my
thinking was if I got the answer wrong and my students were the same. It took
me at least one trimester to get them to stop erasing their answers when I
asked them to explain how they found their answer.
In this respect I liked the CCSS as they lean towards more
student-centered instruction in order to develop a deep understanding of the
standards. It’s going to take a while though to get a hang of questioning
students without taking over their thinking. This article definitely helped me
in identifying which actions I need to be conscious not to do when talking to
my students about math.
I identify with the struggle to have students NOT erase their work when you want to discuss their thinking! When I taught in a private school we used to have students write in ink...so we could see their thinking. Most math teachers are mortified with using ink for math. I just overheard my next door teacher tell a student yesterday that "Math is ONLY done with a pencil...so you can erase your mistakes!"
ReplyDeleteBTW: I bought the big FAT pens for my 2nd and 3rd graders just for Math use. .