Summary of Math Articles

Here are my summaries for the following articles:

Discourse That Promotes Conceptual Understanding (Kazemi) was about the importance of students explaining their thinking or steps to solving a problem. This included justifications of the students answers or thinking. The students did not look as errors as a bad thing however a learning opportunity. This method of learning in math is done in my classroom. My CT is always wanting the students to explain their thinking or justify their answers.

Putting Umph into Discussion (Stein) was about not letting your discussions in the classroom become routine. The teacher should not always be asking the students "why"? They showed this different ways of getting the "umph" into your classroom in the area of the classroom activity. A debate were it was mostly student centered and the teacher was there just to restate or keep the students on task. The key to setting up your classroom in order to promote this environment were debates can take place, classroom management has to be a safe and understanding.

Chapter Nine from the Chapin book is about writing lesson plans for math lessons. I found this chapter be very useful and helpful, since our units are going to be due soon. They broke down the lessons into five different parts, which are: identifying the mathematical goals, anticipating confusion, asking questions, managing classroom talk, and planning the implementation. I believe the most important part of the lsson is anticipating confusion because this can stop misconceptions or misunderstanding before they happen. If you know what students had problems with in the past, you can point out those mistakes right away.

In Listening to Students: The Power of Mathematical Conversations (Atkins) was about teachers really listening to what students are communicating when they are talking during math. This means changing the teachers role in the classroom. Instead of being the main leader, become a member into the math community. In doing this, making sure the layout of the classroom is focused on the students and not all the attention is to the teacher. The students build a peer to peer learning environment where they grow and learn off of each other.