There is no point in having a math discussion if students aren’t listening to each other.
It is pointless, a waste of time.
You’re probably like dang mona that’s harsh. And it is. But I don’t want you wasting your time if you can’t get students to engage.
However, I will say that math discussions are the BEST way to ensure students are able to communicate their thinking and deeply engage in complex math…. we just have to get students to engage! Don’t worry, I’ve got you. I’m going to share three ways to get students to engage in math discussions!
Do discussions even work?
Hattie 0.82 John Hattie developed a way of synthesizing various influences in different meta-analyses according to their effect size (Cohen’s d). In his study “Visible Learning” he ranked 138 influences that are related to learning outcomes from very positive effects to very negative effects. Hattie found that the average effect size of all the interventions he studied was 0.40. Therefore he decided to judge the success of influences relative to this ‘hinge point’, in order to find an answer to the question “What works best in education?”
Discussions ranked at 0.82, which is significantly more than the “hinge point” 0.40. That tells us that math discussions (or discussions in general) do have an effect on student learning.
When do discussions work best?
When 100% of students are participating.
What does participation look like in a discussion?
Participate by speaking, listening, and thinking.
This should be your expectation– for every child in your class to participate everyday. Each student should participate by speaking, listening, and thinking. Obviously some of these are harder to assess than others. That’s why it is important to TEACH students how to participate in these ways.
Teaching students to engage by listening:
Active listening is a common phrase I hear in classrooms. This usually means whole body listening– still body, eye contact, and hands free. Why does this work? Because when students are looking at the person without distractions of movement they are better able to listen. It also teaches students to participate with their body language, but showing the person speaking that they are engaged.
As adults, we know that we attend better when we aren’t listening and looking at our phones, but we are making eye contact and nodding our head. This helps us stay in the conversation as an adult, and the same is true for our students. However, that’s not something they automatically know how to do… but we have to teach them.
A note about teaching students how to listen and participate… we have to do this every year Kindergarten to high school. No matter the grade students will need to continue to work on this skill. They will likely need reminders each day. So, I know it is temping to think, “They’re in 4th grade now they should know how to listen to each other and participate in a discussions.” But the truth is… they are still learning. They still need support at building these skills. And if we’re honest, as adults we still need support with listening & communicating skills.. Right?
Teaching students to engage by thinking:
Obviously you can’t think for students. However, you can give them thinking tasks.
“While she’s talking I want you to think about _______.”
“During the share I want you to figure out what she did and why she did it.”
These thinking tasks help students focus on WHAT to listen for and think about. This helps them narrow their focus and keep their brains on the thing most important.
You can also help them show their thinking in class with silent signals. This allows students to show when they agree, disagree, or have a connection.
Use these signals:
*agree/ me too
*disagree
Teaching students to engage by speaking:
- Use sentence stems– one at a time. I want to hear you use “I notice” today.
This allows students to actually use them and get practice using them without having to decide which sentence stem is right and then use it. There usually isn’t time for that. So, create a habit by having students focus on using one or two each week. Then they will gradually build their repertoire of sentence stems to use. - Use opt-out. Students should be able to say, “I need more time.” or “Can you come back to me”
So there are 3 ways to get students to FULLY engage in math discussions… it’s this simple!
- Actively listen
- Think
- Speak
Because a math discussion is about more than students just sharing their ideas out into the air in the classroom, and MUST be about students listening, thinking and speaking to one another.
Other episodes about Math Discussions:
Episode 92: Interview with Paola, Use Purposeful Techniques for Math Discussions
Episode 81: Simplify Math Discussions with a Routine
Three Steps to Planning for Math Discussions
Math Discussion Related Books You’ll Love:
5 Practices for Orchestrating Math Discussions
Activating Math Talk 11 Purposeful Techniques for your Elementary Math Classroom
