Research on students' learning has made it clear that learning happens through an interaction with others and through communication. In the classroom, the more students talk and discuss their ideas, the more they learn. However, within a one-hour period, it is hard to give everyone an equal opportunity to talk and share their ideas. Organizing students in groups distributes classroom talk more widely and equitably (Cohen and Lotan 1997).
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Mathematical Explorations: A New Twist on Collaborative Learning
classroom-ready activities
Stephanie M. Butman
A cartoon highlighting growth of a retirement fund is coupled with a full-page activity sheet.
Gabriel T. Matney and Brooke N. Daugherty
Cans on a grocery store shelf and Hirst's Capric Acid Amide can illustrate dot arrays, thus helping students understand the distributive property, partial products, and the standard algorithm for multiplication.
Lisa A. Brooks and Juli K. Dixon
A second-grade teacher challenges the raise-your-hand-to-speak tradition and enables a classroom community of student-driven conversations that share both mathematical understandings and misunderstandings.
Wendy P. Ruchti and Cory A. Bennett
Solutions coupled with drawings can illustrate students' understandings or misunderstandings, particularly in the area of proportional reasoning.
Kara J. Jackson, Emily C. Shahan, Lynsey K. Gibbons, and Paul A. Cobb
Consider four important elements of setting up challenging mathematics problems to support all students' learning.
Jeffrey M. Choppin, Carolyn B. Clancy, and Scott J. Koch
Allowing students to reason and communicate about integer operations, or any idea, before these ideas are formalized can be an important tool for fostering deep understanding.
Stacy L. Reeder and George E. Abshire
Meaningful discourse occurs when tasks are chosen carefully and when the teacher steps back and allows students to move to the forefront of their own learning.
