SED 535 Contemporary Mathematics Teaching Assignment Due: September 16,
2008
Read:
1) Boaler, J. (1999). Participation, knowledge,
and beliefs: A community perspective on mathematics learning. Educational Studies in
Mathematics, 40(3),
259-281. (Available online through Oviatt Library; search under the journal
name, then the volume.)
2) Ball, D.L. (1997). From the general to the particular: Knowing our own students
as learners of mathematics. Mathematics Teacher, 90(9), 732-737. (In reader)
3) CathyÕs reflection.
Do to submit:
1) Using the ideas generated in your small-group
discussion, describe (one paragraph) how you would modify one of the tasks in
your lesson plan (or activity) that you brought to class to raise its level of
cognitive demand. Please submit
the lesson/activity plan, too.
2) Boaler writes about the importance of context in determining what students
learn to do with and understand about math. Give three examples from her
article of elements of the classroom context that shape what students learn
about math (one sentence each).
3) Describe (in a few sentences) an episode from
your teaching this past week in which you thought you understood what a student
was thinking, until you probed deeper with questions (as Ball did with
Ofala). (If you are not currently
teaching, try to recall and describe a time when you had this experience with a
math learner.)
Due September
23: Analysis of Questioning assignment
SED 535 Analysis
of Questioning Assignment Due: September 23,
2008
1)
Audio-record part of a lesson you teach in
which you use questioning for one or more of these purposes:
á Helping
students understand or connect math content
á Helping
students reason mathematically
á Diagnosing
studentsÕ mathematical understanding
2)
Select the 5-7-minute segment of audio that
includes the most interesting interactions among you and your students.
Transcribe this section verbatim, using pseudonyms for students.
3)
Write a 3-page[1]
analysis of this segment of the lesson. In this analysis, you should:
Ÿ provide any background
information necessary for the reader to understand the analysis that follows
Ÿ choose 2 or 3 questions and explain your rationale for asking each one, i.e., how were you hoping the
question would benefit the student(s) or the studentÕs response would benefit
you?
Ÿ interpret particular student
responses to each of these 2-3
questions, i.e., (as applicable) what did the student really mean, why did she
answer as she did, where was her confusion, how did she interpret the question,
did she change her mind or come to any new understanding as a result of this
exchange?
Ÿ assess the effectiveness of each of these questions in terms of
your rationale, i.e., how well it elicited the desired student behavior or
understanding, or informed you about studentsÕ thinking
Ÿ describe how you would
rephrase these particular questions or which would you add or eliminate if you
could re-orchestrate this section of the lesson, and explain why these
revisions would make the questions more effective for their purpose.
Submit both the analysis and the written
transcript to me.
4)
Prepare a 5-minute presentation in which you
give necessary background for the portion of the lesson you analyzed and
describe how you would revise your questioning, giving a few examples from the
transcript and your analysis to support your ideas. These presentations will be
delivered in small groups, with group discussion to follow.
Scoring:
Completeness of
background information 1
point
Reasonableness of
rationale for each selected question 2
points
Quality of
interpretation and assessment of each questionÕs effectiveness 3
points
Quality of question
revisions and their rationale 3
points
Quality of writing 1
point
Total 10 points