Differentiating in Math
For years mathematics focused on finding the correct answer. How students arrived at that answer was not addressed. This has begun to change. Teachers are starting to confer with students one-on-one to see their thinking, and more emphasis is being placed on a student’s individual problem solving methods.
Conferring with students in any academic area is essential for effective instruction. This idea can seem daunting, so ERG recommends one of our favorite books, Guided Math Conferences by Laney Sammons. This book can be used by teachers new to conferences and those who have experience with them. It is filled with ideas about how to create a math environment conducive to problem solving and how to refine what you may already be doing.
Guided Math Conferences begins by showing the parallels between reading and math conferences. In each you sit down beside an individual child, question him to find out his level of understanding and skill, decide what you need to teach, teach it, and then link it to future learning. Each conference should take about 5 minutes.
In chapter 7 Sammons gives the reader brief snapshots of 6 different types of conferences. She does this in dialogue form between a teacher and her student. Also, these dialogues are divided up by grade ranges: K-2, 3-5, and 6-8. Sometimes it’s hard to know what questions to ask when you’re new to conferences with your students, so the section on eight types of questions to ask is extremely helpful. These questions are designed to “reveal and extend student thinking”.
Additionally, in this chapter, Sammons gives the reader specific guidelines for holding effective conferences. They range from the difference between helping and conferring to having children do most of the talking to figuring out how to teach just one thing. These guidelines are both a review and a new take on what we already know.
Sammons, also, has a chapter on the different ways to take and organize notes from the conferences. She then goes on to talk about how to use those notes. In the appendix Sammons includes a menu of the guided math framework and then examples of organizational, goal setting, and note taking charts.
Sammons doesn’t just stick to math conferences. She also includes smaller sections on small group work, math interviews, and whole group teaching. However to obtain a full grasp of these smaller sections, you’ll need to look at the book Implementing Guided Math or Strategies for Implementing Guided Math by Sammons.
When done well and with intention, math conferences help teachers find out what a student does and doesn’t know. They, also, show how a student learns best. They give immediate feedback to the teacher and the student, and an important aspect we often forget is they provide an opportunity for one-on-one human interaction between the teacher and her student. Laney Sammons explains how to make this happen.