We've been approaching math in a very collaborative, cooperative way this year. In order to encourage metacognition, and the ability to articulate our mathematical strategies, we've been answering open ended questions. Students discuss their thinking about concepts, label what they know, represent their understanding with notes, and help each other build a deeper understanding of our concepts. It also shows kids that there are a variety of ways to think about mathematical concepts, and we can be flexible in our approaches to solving open ended problems. The thinking and learning that comes out of these discussions is so rich. Here are some pictures of our latest mathematical discussions, when students were working together to think about what they could do with a set of numbers.
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| "We can put these numbers in numerical order and find the median" |
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| We can add them all together (which we later translated into finding the mean by dividing by the total #s in the set). |
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| Each of these students here used a different strategy to add all their numbers. It was interesting to see the different strategies at work. |
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| We can use the individual digits to make bigger numbers. (That's one of our place value concepts this unit) |
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After finding all the data landmarks, this student commented that his notes looked like a Cat in the Hat hat.
He later drew a Cat in the Hat for us for homework, so that we can remember all of our landmark data. I will post a picture of his finished product. |
