Surfacing and studying studying misconceptions via Talking Points

In a class of 36 students, where it can be, shall we say, difficult for me to do formative assessment on every student every day, the Talking Points structure gives me a great way to surface and deal with student misconceptions by getting students to surface, discuss, and correct them.

Par example...

Our sequencing for Geometry has gotten totally screwy this year because of some new district requirements around the Common Core. Having learned how to do all of the basic constructions, we are now finally approaching the unit test on parallel lines and their angles. There are so many possible errors in understanding that can happen around these, I wanted to create a group work activity to address them. I also want to change groups up this week, so I am using this as community-building as well.

I've discovered it is a good idea to weave together community-building statements, growth mindset statements, metacognitive self-monitoring statements, and Always / Sometimes / Never statements. The Talking Points structure lets me accomplish multiple goals simultaneously, which is something I need to do with such big classes.

An editable version of this set of Talking Points is on the Group Work Working Group (#GWWG14) wiki page on the TMC14 wiki.

What do you do after Formative Assessment reveals a gaping hole in understanding? More Talking Points, of course. :)

My Geometers took the opportunity to inform me through their Chapter 1 exams that they really don't get how angles are named. So this seemed like a perfect opportunity for more Talking Points, of course. :)

This time I'm giving everybody a diagram of a figure that the Talking Points refer to. They will have to do some reasoning about naming angles in order to do the Talking Points. They love doing Talking Points, but they mostly like coming to immediate consensus. Hopefully this will throw a monkey wrench (so to speak) into those works.

Here is the Talking Points file (they print 2-UP) and here is the set of diagrams (they print 6-UP) to use together for this lesson/activity.

More news as it happens!