8 Teaching Moves Supporting Equitable Participation was an extremely insightful read

that provided me with many ideas on student participation and how to support student
participation. The purpose of this article is to provide teachers with tips on how to boost student
participation in an equitable, social justice based way. There is a focus on meeting students
where they are and not creating a classroom environment where participation is scary. To learn
requires mistakes and many students are not aware of that due to previous classroom
experiences. If we want students to participate and actively engage in learning, we must call
attention to their strengths and give them opportunities to be responsible for their own learning,
which this article recommends. Although it is not explicitly stated, it seems that this article could
provide insights to teachers who work with early childhood students all the way through to high
school teachers. It’s clear that participation from students can be a struggle at any grade level.
Overall, this article provides some great ideas, as well as solid reasoning behind those ideas, for
boosting students’ participation and engagement with their learning and the content being taught.
After reading this article again, I am taking a lot from it and looking forward to using
many of these strategies during my practicum experience and when I teach my own group of
students next year. In my current practicum classroom, participation can be a struggle for my
mentor teacher. I think she could benefit from implementing some of these recommendations.
This group of students could definitely benefit from move four, “Give students responsibility for
managing their work” and move eight, “Establish a norm that ‘no one is finished until everyone
understands’’ (Wood et al., pp. 221-222). I would like to try to use these strategies during my
upcoming observation before the end of the semester. On the other hand, I do see the use of
move 7 in my practicum classroom. This move suggests that teachers “take only group
questions” (Wood et al., pp. 222). My mentor teacher always encourages students to ask their
group members questions prior to asking a teacher. This helps students understand that they
should work with and rely on their group members before going straight to the teacher for help.
Overall, I really enjoyed this article and feel that I am able to take many new ideas from it that
will not only help me boost student participation, but also help me become a better teacher.

Citation:

Wood, M. B., Sheldon, J., Felton-Koestler, M. D., Oslund, J., Parks, A. N., Crespo, S., &
Featherstone, H. (2019). 8 Teaching Moves Supporting Equitable Participation. Teaching
Children Mathematics, 25(4), 218–223.