Adventures

in Discourse
by Donna Robertson

Research Question:
In

what ways will I be

able to use the discourse
research to advance
positive attitudes in math
abilities in my students?

Data:
This

course will help

prepare me to encourage
mathematical discourse
among my students and
help me to engage all
learners.

Are my students more

engaged?

Is there evidence of
understanding the concept?

How is discourse progressing?

What does this number stand for?
Can you tell me how you got your answer?
How many ways did you find ?
How did you decide to start this way?

What is another way to solve this problem?

Why cant I get a good audio recording

of discourse in my classroom?

Teacher lacks the technological ability at this time.

Students clam up when I try to record them.
Teacher has some anxiety about the new curriculum and its pacing.
I havent practiced sentence starters to help with discourse enough.
This is the first year that the students have been asked to explain their
thinking in more detail.
It is still early in the year and we just arent there yet.

Todays Attempt
How can arrays be used to show a division fact?

Cesar arranges 18 notecards into rows of

6 for his presentation. Draw an array to
represent the problem.
What information in this problem lets us know how to set
up the array?

Do we know the number of groups or the size of the the

groups? How can we show that in the array?
(Used magnetic cards to help show)
Is the total number of objects stated in the problem? How
can we show that we have that amount in the array?
Angel demonstrated a count by method to prove the amount.

Where do I go from here?

Breathe, breathe, breathe, and dont give up.
Continue modeling and training in discourse and providing
more practice.
Keep working to engage all students and dont give up.

PUP