Questioning: Assessing and Advancing Student Understanding

• Examine the role that assessing and advancing questions play in deepening mathematical understanding

• Apply question stems to write strategic questions

Schedule:

5 minutes –     Settle in, take attendance, Intro question: What are the most common types of questions that you ask in class?  Would you classify those as assessing or advancing questions?  

10-15 minutes –     Participants’ implementation share-out

3-5 minutes –     Transition into current module, connection between concepts: How can we steer the discourse in our classrooms to match the learning objectives of the lesson without inserting ourselves into the middle of the conversation? 

10-20 minutes –     Workbook reflection: 

1. What was familiar and what was new about the workbook task that asked you to anticipate student approaches, struggles, and misconceptions?  What circumstances contribute to the relative challenge of this aspect of lesson planning? 

2. What did you notice about how Mr. Ortiz’s questions built on the answers Finley provided?  What are some ways you plan for follow-up questions in your classroom?

3. Were there any prompts in this section of the workbook that you wanted to discuss with the rest of the group? What about them were you looking to explore further?

20-30 minutes –     Application discussion prompts: 

1. What process do you currently use to plan your questions during a math lesson?  What advantages and disadvantages have you experienced with that process?  

2. How does our choice of math tasks in class influence the extent and types of questioning we can do?  Are there patterns in the connection between these choices?

3. Are there benefits to teaching students to question each other?  Are there costs?  What types of supports could we provide to our students to encourage them to question each other?  

5-10 minutes -     Wrap up: Each individual brainstorms "What can you do between now and our next meeting to incorporate or emphasize this topic more in your classroom?" and a few participants volunteer for the next session’s implementation share-out