Chapter 1 Student Reflection: Types of Tasks

Four sentences in Chapter 1 grabbed my attention the first time I read the book.

"Students will get stuck.

They will think. 

And they will get unstuck.

And when they do, they will learn --

they will learn about mathematics, 

they will learn about themselves,

And they will learn how to think."

In my end-of-the-year survey,

I wanted to see how students perceived their own thinking.

I was seeing waaaaay more thinking than from years past.

But what were they seeing?

How were they reflecting on their learning?

I was pleasantly surprised to see that students were seeing their learning in the same way I was.

For them to be aware that they were thinking through the math problems,

Then they were probably aware that they were learning these very math concepts.

Which was another question on the survey.  :)

For 64% of my students to feel like their learning was greater than in years past,

Was proof that the vertical white boards were being seen as a valued tool

in the thinking, and ultimately, learning process.

When students explained their thinking for their overall learning,

I was blown away by their answers!

"It was greater because I was more focused."

"I'm getting good scores from my quizzes and I'm understanding problems better."

"I learned more standards than I have in previous years."

"There were different ways of learning how to do something"

"Last year and the years before, I really struggled with keeping up and understanding mat.  It was my hardest subject. But this year I really started understanding and enjoyed doing the math and gained confidence."

"Math is my worst subject but I am definitely doing better at it now."

"I never really picked up math this well until this year."

"I feel like I'm not the best at math but I do feel like I'm getting better."

"I can remember what we did at the beginning."

"I feel like learned quite a bit this year, because I paid more attention."

"You filled some of the gaps [in my learning] that I needed filled."

 

When asked what strategies they [the students] relied on when they got stuck...

"I just restarted and tried different ways."

"I looked at the other boards to see how they were solving it."

"I would THINK about what we did in the classroom."

"I would talk about it to find what was wrong."

"I would look [through my work] from the beginning for any faults and skim through until I got to the part we messed up on."

"Ask other people for how they understood the problem."

"I would try to find another way to solve it."

"I would ask for help."

While this data and the many comments do not simply address the Type of Tasks that Chapter 1 addresses,

This data is in direct response to the three sentences that started this whole journey.

I wanted to increase mathematical thinking in my classroom.

And from what I've shown here,

I believe that happened.