Clip 14/18: Debrief Part 1
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Reflecting on the lesson immediately afterwards, Lisa Hennefarth shares that the lesson was “eye-opening.” She shares that in planning, she often discusses with her colleague what possible barriers may exist for students’ learning, what things students will get. Thinking of the opening activity, “Which one doesn’t belong,” Lisa connects to prior lessons which also involved writing a story about functions of distance and time, which brings in a cross-curricular component. Infusing writing elevates the rigor and engagement of the students across disciplines. She recognizes that even the word “commentary” may not be existing vocabulary for a learner and gives students access and opportunity to work with information in a language-rich way, with a “low-floor, high-ceiling” approach that emphasizes student thinking. She appreciated how students incorporated elements of other people’s approaches into refining their commentaries. She noted the students’ use of the graph, and how they confronted the challenge of a continuous graph. Some students need yet further development of language and vocabulary in order to fully express their thinking, though all showed steps in the right direction.
Teacher Commentary
Teacher Commentary
Lisa Hennefarth
I appreciated in this lesson how well the students worked in groups. Being able to pair share, and successive pair shares where you build, and you keep editing and revising, that's the other piece that's so critical. Students don't immediately understand the importance of revisions. Math is not done in a silo; math is like writing. I've told students, “Do you know how many times I edited my master's thesis? Do you know how many times you edit when you apply to jobs and you write letters of intent?” Math is the same way. Looking back, I would change part of this to emphasize the importance of, it's not only sharing and listening, but you need to revise it. The revision piece is more important than any other piece, giving students time to do that. I would love to spend more time on it. This recording was a 90-minute lesson; I would probably do it over two 90-minute lessons to get the most out of the revision, the talking, having them look at somebody else's work. Students also don't always like to go and look at somebody else's work, because in our environments that's “cheating.” No, it's actually not, it's called brainstorming and getting ideas. It matters how we as educators frame it to them.