Ch. 7: Conferring with Students During Guided Math

Hi all, Bethany again from Hunter's Tales from Teaching. I'm excited to bring you the highlights of Chapter 7 in our book study today!

Chapter 7 is called Conferring with Students During Guided Math

Many of us confer with our students in reading and writing, but I have to wonder how many of you are like me, and you don't really confer during math. 

Conferring in math is set-up the same way conferring is done in reading. There are four main steps; Research, Decide, Teach, and Link.

Research

The first step to conferring is research.  During this step it is important to observe the work that your student is doing and to ask them questions to begin to understand their thought process. It is during this time that you are looking to see what your student clearly knows and what they do not know.

Decide

Step two is to decide what area you want to work on with your student based on the research you just gathered. It is important to choose one skill, strategy, or process to focus on during this conferring time.

Teach

Once you have decided what to cover, you can teach your student to help correct their understanding. It is highly recomended that you praise your students first. Find something they are doing well and encourage them to keep that up. Doing this will help your kids feel more confident, and will continue to let them know what types of things they should continue to do as a math student. 

Teaching can take on a number of different forms during your conference. It can be a demonstration, guided practice, explicit telling, or showing students what they need to correct or to challenge them (based on their need at the time.) 

Link

The final step in conferring is link. When you link, you are showing students what they have done, and how it connects to what they are studying, have studied, or will study in the future. Doing this helps the student to share what they have learned and allows them to connect and take ownership of their learning.

Management

The chapter stresses the importance of establishing a strong classroom management plan. One suggestion Laney Sammons gives to us is to crisscross across the classroom when you confer. Don't have the children come to you, and don't go student to student, but rather confer with one child on one side of the room and then jump to the other side. The proximity of the teacher moving around the room to meet with students will help some of our more wiggly kiddos stay on task.

It is super important for your students to understand how much you value the conferring time. Laney Sammons is very clear that our students should not interrupt us while we are in a conference with a student. Making sure that our kiddos don't interrupt us actually helps them to become better problem solvers. They are able to struggle through a task and when they figure it out on their own they are able to have the ultimate feeling of success that people get when they have had to work hard for something.

After reading this chapter I can see how important conferring, when done correctly, can positively impact our teaching. I'm looking forward to doing it next year.

Questions to Ponder:

1. Do you currently confer with your students during math? How often do you confer with each child?
2. How do you plan to confer with your students during math this year? 
3. What are some management tips you have to help manage your classroom while you confer with students?

Ch. 4: Guided Math: Using Guided Math with the Whole Class

Hi Friends! I am Tara, or TWitte, from Teaching with TWitte and I am ecstatic to be participating in my first book study with Tina from Mrs.Crofts' Classroom.

I always try to read a couple of educational books during the summer, so when I saw this book study, and researched the text, I discovered that it would be a great fit. As many of your know, I am going to teach 4th grade this year, in a new district, and I finally get to teach, real guided reading. So of course, it would make sense to teach guided math, as well.

Without further ado, I will share Guided Math, Chapter 4, with you now.

The title of this chapter is Using Guided Math with the Whole Class. The advantages and challenges of teaching whole-class instruction are explored throughout the chapter.

Advantages of Whole-Class Instruction

* Teaching mini-lessons

* Activating activities

* Reading aloud math literature

* Establishing Math Workshop routines

* Conducting a Math Huddle

* Practicing and reviewing skills/concepts

* Formal testing and assessing

Whole-class instruction can last for a whole period or a portion of the period. It is typically the easiest to plan for because all students are doing the same thing. While students are all learning the same skills/concepts, in the same way, at the same time, this type of instruction builds a sense of community (refer to Chapter 2 to read more about community building). Guided Math is designed to be flexible, so whole-class instruction is not necessary used all day/every day, but rather when it will be most beneficial to the students. 

Challenges of Whole-Class Instruction

* Not all students benefit from learning at the same level

* It is more difficult to be sure that all students are attending and engaged

* Teacher dominated lessons - limited student communication

* Less opportunity to provide necessary specific feedback to all students

Mini-Lessons

Mini-lessons are meant to be brief, explicit, and no more than 10 minutes long. They are typically used at the beginning of a lesson or at the end of a lesson as a summary of learning. 

Architecture of Math Mini-Lesson

* Connection *

This can be a connection to real-world application, previous learning, a text, or other areas of instruction. A connection will allow students to have a concrete starting point for trying to grasp the new information. 

* Teaching Point * 

Always state the purpose of the lesson, "Today I am going to teach you..." Teachers model what students will be expected to learn while thinking aloud. It is important to cue students attention to important information, "You are going to want to pay attention to this." 

*Active Engagement *

This should be a short period of guided practice. At this time, students might turn-and-talk, sharing their understanding of the concept, in their own words, with their neighbor. Students might also try working on a problem using individual white boards. 

* Link to Ongoing Work *

Provide students with a reminder of the teaching point before setting them off to do their own independent work. 

Activating Strategies

As in any other content area, these are a sort of springboard for new instruction. Things like KWL charts, anticipation guides, and word splashes. 

I found this math anticipation guide on Pinterest, if you click on the picture it links back to the original blog post from The Creative Apple. 

Reading Math Related Children's Literature

Most students love to listen to read-alouds. While listening to a math-related read-aloud, students are able to make more meaningful connections to the concept and they become more deeply involved in the learning and ideas. Math literature reinforces that the skills/concepts the students are learning in math are truly part of everyday life. In the beginning, you, the teacher, will have to think-aloud to identify the math links in the text, but over time, students will be able to take over the task of identifying the math links. Finally, math literature allows students to understand and hear math vocabulary used in context. 

Establishing Routines for Math Workshop

In order to be able to run a successive math workshop, it is necessary to use whole-class instruction to model and practice routines and expectations, as with reading or writing workshops. It will also be necessary to revisit these routines and expectations throughout the year in whole-class settings. 

Math Huddle

Math Huddles allow for students to come together as a group to share their thoughts, ideas, learning, understanding, and strategies with their classmates. Verbalizing learning in their own words is important to students' understanding and allows the teacher the opportunity to clarify any misconceptions. 

Practice and Review

Whole-class instruction works for pencil and paper tasks, such as practice and worksheet completion for grades to be taken. Video clips, games, or learning songs all lend themselves to whole-class instruction. Clickers and classroom response with technology can be used, as well. 

Assessments

Finally, formal testing and assessing is completed in a whole-class situation. 

I tried to make this post too long or overwhelming, but this was a lengthy, informative chapter. If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with me and I will try to clear up anything that I can. 

Questions

1. How often do you use whole-class instruction?

2. For what purpose do you typically use whole-class instruction?

3. In the future, what might you do to make whole-class instruction more meaningful/effective?

Ch. 3: Guided Math Book Study

Hi everyone. Bethany here from Hunter's Tales from Teaching. 

I am so excited to share chapter 3 with you from Guided Math. Those of you that have read my blog know that I've wanted to implement a Math Workshop in my classroom, but I wasn't sure how. So when I saw that Tina from Mrs. Crofts' Classroom was doing this book study I jumped at the chance to participate.

The main focus of chapter 3 is Using Math Warm-ups in Guided Math. This chapter had a ton (36 pages) worth of ideas, so I'm going to give you the highlights.

This chapter starts off sharing the importance of establishing a morning classroom routine. I think we as teacher's understand how important any routine is in our classroom. Laney Sammons shares some ways that we can have Math Stretches in our classroom.

Math Stretches

The idea behind math stretches is to allow students to participate in brief mathematical practice and discussion each day to help get them ready for the day. The book gives examples of some math stretches you can do in your classroom.

Data Collection and Analysis:

Ask your students a question and have them respond. The questions should be simple like, Do you like fireworks? Once the students answer the question you can have them create graphs and make generalizations based on the answers to the question. 

The author shares that it is a good idea to allow students to write their ideas down in their math journals before needing to share them with the class. It gives them a chance to really formulate their ideas. Once they do that, they are able to then participate in a class discussion about their response. 

Number of the Day Math Stretch:

This type of stretch is used to help students build a firm foundation of number patterns,  representations, generalizations etc. This stretch will look very different depending on what grade you teach. Those in the upper grades will have more difficult number of the day activities as the students show they are ready for them.

What's Next? Math Stretch:

This stretch is designed to have students focus on number patterns. This type of math stretch makes students think through patterns and, through discussion, gives them a chance to find the more than one way to solve a problem. 

How Did My Family Use math last night? Math Stretch:

I'd never heard of this stretch before, but I like it. This stretch has students looking for ways that they, or a member of their family use math at home. This is an easy way to have students be on the lookout for math in the real world! They are able to share it and discuss it with the class.

_________ Makes me Think Of... Math Stretch:

This is a great way to have students think about a new upcoming unit. Laney Sammons gives the example of fractions. If you are starting a unit have the students jot down all the things they think about when it comes to fractions. The stretch is that students need to use words-not numbers, pictures, or representations. 

Mathematical Current Events

This strategy is something you as the teacher start, but you allow the students to "take-over" when the time comes. The overall idea is that you bring in articles that show math being used in the real-world and discuss them with your class. This allows students to make connections from math to the real world.

Calendar Board

A calendar board is another way to have math warm-ups. It is more than just a calendar (which is all I thought it was before I read this chapter.) A calendar board is actually an interactive bulletin board that includes a calendar, number line, number charts, a way to model place value and a place to put other materials based on the unit you want to cover. One thing I like about the calendar board is it gives you the opportunity to review concepts all throughout the year, instead of right before THE test (you all know what test I mean.) We can introduce students to new topics that we will be covering and to the vocabulary they will encounter in that unit.

My Goals

I have to be totally honest, I haven't used most of these strategies. I'd love to say that I am going to implement all of these strategies next year, but I know that would overwhelm myself. My goal is to do a math stretch each morning. I plan to start with Number of the Day. I don't have a lot of bulletin board space, so I plan to do a modified calendar board in my room.

Questions for you to Ponder

1. Do you currently use any Math Stretch strategies in your classroom? 

2. How do you encourage linking math to the real world in your classroom?

3. What activities and math warm-ups do you plan to implement next year into your math classroom? 

   

Erin Condren Planner and Guided Math Book Study!

Linking up with the fab Holly for some Tried it Tuesday!

Have you heard about the amazing Erin Condren teacher planners? Well, I bit the bullet and ordered one and I am so glad I did! So without further ado here is my tried it for this week...

Such cute packaging!

Black and white is SO classy to me! I have the life planner in bright pink though! I'm totally a planner girl. 

Here are pictures from each section in the planner. Hope you enjoy!!!

 

Holidays & attendance charts

 

Graph & Yearly Plan

 

Two Page Monthly Calendars & Lesson Plans

 

Student Records & Notes

 

Stickers & Folder to hold items

 

Clear Sleeves for Extra Papers & Pouch

Back page with 2013 & 2014 Yearly Calendar

What do you think?? I'm seriously lovin' it!


Now on to the book study of

I can't wait to start reading this on June 24! Please join us! Guided Math is seriously the way to go. If you are interested in reading along or want to be part of summarizing chapters with us then please fill out the form below. Have a happy Tuesday!