I'm not quite sure what this means... I guess I sample student thinking in every question I ask them and in every activity I ask them to do/produce.
One thing that was really interesting was watching the students work through our math journals that Nicole and I used for action research. We were asking students to slow their problem solving process down and explain their thinking. They struggled with this, and still do, but I think they journals helped a lot. I think it is especially difficult for students to explain and reason through their thinking when it comes to math. They seem to think that if they got the answer right, it doesn't matter how they did it and more importantly it doesn't matter why the answer makes sense. I have seen this a lot in our most recent math chapter which challenged students to go back and forth between multiplication and division --using strategies from one to help understand the other. The problem was kids would mix things up and end up dividing when they were supposed to multiply. I would ask "does it make sense that the answer of our division problem is BIGGER than the numbers we started with?" Suddenly students would start to realize why their answer didn't make sense.
Throughout the day I try to ask students lots of questions and try to take the time to keep breaking things into smaller questions when their first response was incorrect. As I listen to these responses I get a glimpse into their thinking, but it definitely is easier with the really verbal kids who can express their thinking clearly. I would like to learn some ways to get inside the heads of the kids who really struggle.
You've named some effective strategies for sampling student thinking. Math journals are especially useful to informing your teaching if you collect them and do some pattern-finding. What does kids' writing suggest they understand and where do they need more support.
ReplyDeleteThink, too, about non-written strategies to sample student thinking. Could a student act out a scene in a book that moved the plot forward? Could a student sketch the definition of a word/concept you're studying (across content areas)? Where can conversation take the place of (or be the precursor to) written work?
Finally, I've heard you sample student thinking in useful ways when students answer a question, and you ask, "How did you figure that out?" or "What makes you think that?" Both of those follow-ups honor process as much as product, which reflects your professional values.