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Go To Gathering Evidence (Part 2)

Teachers can learn a great deal about their students' level of conceptual understanding and reasoning skills by monitoring small group and whole class discussion. The teacher who knows what to ask and when to listen can gather useful evidence about students' understanding, and can use that evidence to determine next steps in teaching. Consider the teacher's role in the whole class discussion described below, from a combined fifth and sixth grade classroom. The students are investigating the fractional relationships among cubes and rods of different size. Their explanations refer to the relationship among two cubes, where five of the small cubes fit along one side of the large cube.    QuickTime required for viewing this video clip Running Time - 59 sec * File Size - 1.3 MB   Click here to view transcript separately Discussion Questions In this brief episode, the correct answer surfaces right away, and then the discussion veers off to an incorrect answer. How would you handle this situation? Would you bring the group immediately back to the correct answer, or would you allow exploration of the incorrect answer as well? What is David thinking? What is his strategy for counting cubes? What are some errors he has made? Has he reasoned correctly in any ways? What questions might you ask David to promote better understanding of volume in this context? What questions might you ask Juan to help get his strategy and answer back into the discussion? Do you think that other students can benefit from listening to this discussion? How so? References

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