PROBLEM: My kids struggle to explain and justify their thinking and reasoning in maths.
WONDERING: How can I develop the mathematical dialogic discourse ability of my children?
The data I collected confirmed my suspicions that my kids struggled to explain and justify their reasoning in maths. My hunch is that the kids don't know how to do this effectively. To help them learn I have made prompts of the kind of things they should be saying when explaining and justifying their thinking.
The idea is that each kid holds a few prompts in their hands and their goal is to meaningfully use the prompt in their maths session. Once they have used it they can discard the prompt. My hope is that over time using these prompts will become second nature and they will no longer need them. I used the symbol of the waka paddle as we often talk about how we are one whanau and we are all in one waka. We need to all paddle in the same direction if we are to get anywhere.
Hi Rob, I am interested to see how your year 8 students respond to the prompts. Looking forward to seeing how this goes!
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