Friday, March 18, 2016

Let the kids teach themselves how to do Talking Points

In thinking about the ways in which I try to push authority downward into student groups, I have been searching for ways to get my students to teach themselves about how to do Talking Points.

scene from the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Chapter on Inequalities
from the forthcoming mathematical
blockbuster, Harry Potter and the 
Chapter on Inequalities
So far, this has been by far my most successful method.

I have written "deleted scenes" from unmade (or yet-to-be-made) movies to introduce new concepts by having kids do a readers' theater activity instead of lecturing. So, I thought, why not do the same thing for Talking Points?

The results have been much better than I expected. Because all the voices and rules come to them through their own voices, they seem much more bought into the guidelines. They also act as their own enforcers of norms, rather than my having to circulate around the room constantly on the lookout for infractions.

So here is a link to my deleted scene for having kids teach themselves about Talking Points.

I will also be using this scene in my NCTM workshop on Talking Points next month.

Let me know what you think!

9 comments:

  1. Will you be at TMC? Will you be doing this workshop there?

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    1. Hi Sue, Yes, I'll be giving an afternoon workshop on this! Looking forward to seeing you there.

      - Elizabeth (@cheesemonkeysf)

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  2. p.s. The scene is hilarious, devious, and on target.

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  3. Wow! Your creativity is incredible! Thank you for sharing.

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    1. Thanks for stopping by, Jasmine! :)

      - Elizabeth (@cheesemonkeysf)

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  4. Wow! Your creativity is incredible! Thank you for sharing.

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  5. Oh no! I really wanted to read about this "deleted scene" way of introducing math talks, but the link to the mathwiki says it's not available! I hope it gets fixed soon. Thanks for all your efforts to help us improve math teaching across the nation.

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    1. The old site must have gotten hacked. In the meantime, I've uploaded the file to my Google Drive and set permissions to view only. I hope this can help us to avoid hacks. Grrr.

      DM me on Twitter if you have any problems (@cheesemonkeysf).

      - Elizabeth

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  6. Talking Points is a really interesting idea. I can see it applying nicely in my undergrad statistics class.

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