While there has been a tremendous amount of schooling loss, students maintain unique funds of knowledge valuable to math classrooms. This article looks at three practices that work in combination to foster safe, student-centered learning environments as students return to school having unique and varied lived experiences.
Creativity in mathematics abounds at the intersection of belief and practice! When the belief that all learners are doers of mathematics and enter the classroom with valuable lived math experiences intersects with the use of a lesson routine that offers space for students to do the thinking, learners become the creators and authors of the material from which they learn.
Questioning the Author is a discussion-based approach that supports students in studying and understanding complex texts. Comprehension work is an essential piece of any text-based task. If students don’t get the gist of the text or grasp an author’s ideas, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to do deeper analytic and interpretive work. It is especially important for emerging readers and emergent multi-lingual (EML) students to be able to access the big ideas of a text while building their comprehension muscles.
An understanding of number, specifically the idea of sets of quantities of things, begins in infancy and develops long before formal schooling. So…
• What does mathematical thinking and reasoning look like in infants?
• How do thinking and reasoning change after infancy?
• How might parents/families/caregivers influence the development of children’s mathematical thinking and reasoning?
• What are some things that adults can do to support children’s mathematical development?
Check out our interview with Dr. Melissa Libertus, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychology and Research Scientist, Learning Research & Development Center, who sat down with us to share her research and provide answers to these questions and so much more.
Accountable Talk discussions require teachers and their students to support one another and mutually create a classroom community committed to using and building accurate knowledge and engaging in rigorous thinking. Everyone involved understands and is accountable for respecting each other and the learning community, as a whole. This begins with recognizing and honoring each person’s different lived experiences because every person brings vital knowledge and valuable assets to the learning community. This article provides a general understanding of Accountable Talk discussions and serves as a basis to begin exploring this high-leverage practice.