29 students are going on a field trip to a museum. The field trip will cost $20 per student. How much will it cost for 29 students to go on the field trip?

This is an example of an open routed question. There is only one answer but there are multiple strategies to get the answer. Therefore, we ask the students to solve the problem in groups and in more than one way. The first strategy will come naturally for some students however, the second strategy may be more difficult to come up with. Again, the goal of the lesson is to see all the multiplication strategies that the students will use solve the problem. As the students “work on it” we would circulate around the classroom asking questions about students’ strategies, guiding students through the process, and allowing mistakes to occur (these will be addressed during the “reflect and connect”). It is also important to note that not every group needs to be finished before moving on to the “reflect and connect”. Sometimes incomplete solutions provide good starting points for classroom discussion.

The third part of the math lesson is the most important part of the lesson but often the part that gets left out by teachers. It is also considered by many teachers as the most difficult part of the math lesson to facilitate. The “reflect and connect” is when the learning of the math concepts really occurs because the learning comes from the student work. This is the part of the lesson where students are given an opportunity to explain their strategies and solutions and where teachers are given an opportunity to focus on key strategies and concepts by guiding a math discussion through strategic questioning. This math discussion is very important because the conversation is less teacher centred and more student centred. Students ask each other questions about their solutions, make connections between their solutions, and defend their math solutions. The goal of the “reflect and connect” is to create the culture of a math community that allows students to take risks and where mistakes are considered to be opportunities for new learning. Ideally, this is what the “reflect and connect” should and could be like however, it takes time to get there. Students need time to learn how to ask appropriate questions, give constructive feedback, and receive constructive feedback. Teachers need time to learn how to ask probing and guiding questions and look for connections between student work.

There are a few ways to conduct a “reflect and connect”. The following article titled, Communication in the Mathematics Classroom explains three different approaches of math communication that can be implemented during a “reflect and connect”:  1) Gallery Walk, 2) Math Congress, and 3) Bansho.

My next post will focus on the gallery walk and a possible way to enhance math communication via Lino it using the following student solutions:

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