One of my main goals is to help students that struggle in math build up the confidence and vocabulary to be able to explain their mathematical reasoning behind their thought process. This past week we attempted our first “Defend It”.
Setting Up The Groups:
In a “Defend It” students are grouped into teams of 3 or 4 students. One student is the secretary and writes down the explanation. Another person is the speaker and they are who must get up in front of the class and read their explanation. Normally your leaders of the group volunteer for one of these two roles. This normally leaves the other one or two students without much to do in the group work and a chance to slip through the cracks. However, the final students from the group will take on the most important role. They are the Q&A students. These are the students who must answer my questions after hearing the group response. On the first attempt, I allow the students to choose their roles. However, after we completed the first round students quickly realized the importance of the Q&A participants. Quickly the leaders were deciding that next time they will take on the role of Q&A. That means that students that normally are not actively involved in group work will now have to either be the secretary or the speaker…so its a win – win for this math teacher.
The Problem:
Students were given a WODB (Which One Doesn’t Belong) problem as their journal entry topic for their Wednesday Wonder. In this task, students are given four problems and asked to pick the one that doesn’t belong. They must come up with a mathematical reason that the one they chose does not belong. The twist… there is not a right or wrong answer.
The following day the students were grouped into groups of three or four students based on their response from the journal entry the day before. The group must then work together to come up with the mathematical reason they plan to use for their “Defend It.” I loved listening as the students shared out their ideas from the journal entry the day before. Students then debated among each other whether the reasons were valid. Finally they reached a consensus and wrote up their response.
Then it was time for the speaker to come up to the front of the room and present their group’s rationale. Once the group gave their explanation it was time for Q&A. Below is a short clip. I cut off most of the Q&A portion, but I wanted to give you an idea of how I run it.
We have a really long way to go before we will be ready to do “Defend It” presentations. But I love where we are starting.
#seeingmath with Mrs Strole 