Online Session Reflections

Online Session 1

In the first part of the online session we looked at Five Practices for facilitating mathematical discussions around cognitively demanding tasks within the classroom. As a beginning teacher I found that some of these tasks may be a bit challenging for me such as anticipating likely student responses. Because we are all different learners there are students in my class that will likely think of different ways to solve mathematical problems I present that I did not think about. This is perfectly acceptable but as a beginning teacher I may find it more difficult to anticipate all of the student responses to questions due to my lack of experience as a teacher. With more experience though and getting to know my students better it will make it easier to anticipate individual student's responses to questions.

I find the Five Practices beneficial for the classroom because they provide a student-centered approach to learning that creates a more dynamic and engaging classroom. For example, one of the practices is selecting students to present their mathematical responses. This can be beneficial because it shows student's how their peers solve mathematical problems and in an ideal classroom where there is no judging other students you can also occasionally select students with a common error in their formulation of their solution to the problem which can generate discussion as well as enlighten other students who had made the same mistake.

The second part of the first online module challenged us to think outside the box by solving problems using different approaches that students may use. This exercise was useful because it challenged me to use different approaches to solving a problem then what I would normally be used to which is good preparation for when I will have to anticipate student's responses to math problems while teaching.

Online Session 2

Formative assessment is important tool used to determine the level of understanding students have on certain topics/concepts/ideas. There are different ways that you can approach using formative assessment but there are five key universal steps that can be used to help achieve effective formative assessment. One of these steps is sharing learning goals with the students. This allows the students to have an idea of what they should learn at the end of a lesson so that they can asked themselves "did I achieve the learning goal today?" Another very important step is providing feedback that moves learning forward. Feedback can be provided in written, oral or through a demonstration and should force students to engage cognitively about their own work.

Written feedback to a student should provide a question to the student rather than just a "correct" or "incorrect." You should provide the student with a reasoning for why their answer was good or incorrect that allows them to think about other options or methods. For example in a substitution/elimination problem that a student solves using substitution only you may write down as feedback "great answer! can you think of another method that you can use to solve the problem?"

The teacher should also guide student's using feedback rather than providing them with the correct answer right away. This allows students to think back to the problem rather than just seeing the correct answer and moving on.


Another important thing with feedback that I believe is very important is providing enough time for students to read and think about their feedback. You can provide students with feedback on an assignment or test and tell them to read the feedback and they may or may not do so. Providing time in class to look at the feedback makes it more likely that student's will look at their feedback and cognitively engage in it.

Overall I believe feedback is important tool for all students whether they are struggling or excelling at a topic it can be beneficial for both those types of students if used effectively and this module was a great way of thinking about feedback and how it can be used in a math classroom effectively.