Social Learning Environment is the KEY to Success

The successful facilitation of CCSS is based on the social learning environment of the classroom.

 

Does your class have a norm that requires students to provide an explanation with their solution?  This norm, if present, places importance on HOW students solved a problem rather than just IF they solved the problem.

Norms should include:

1.       Provide explanations and justifications as part of your solution process.

2.       Attempt  to make sense of their classmate’s solutions by asking questions for clarification.

3.       Communicate when you don’t understand or agree with solutions others present, spurring healthy debate between and among students. (Purposeful talk)

Eventually, these discussions become a natural part of the classroom discourse and can occur in an organized way without your direction.  These norms are established through a process of negotiation in which you make your expectations clear but also involve students in the process of implementing the norms. (Cobb, 2000).

It is likely you will need to model these sorts of behaviors for your students, until it becomes a natural part of your math classroom.  You can scaffold this by asking challenging and probing questions.  To do this effectively, you need a deep understanding of the mathematics you teach so you can support student engagement in this practice.

You should think about what sorts of expectations and behaviors support desired engagement during mathematics instruction and what detracts from it.