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Teachers can learn a great deal about their students' level of conceptual
understanding and reasoning skills by monitoring small group and whole
class discussion. The teacher who knows what to ask and when to listen
can gather useful evidence about students' understanding, and can use that
evidence to determine next steps in teaching. Consider the teacher's role
in the whole class discussion described below, from a combined fifth and
sixth grade classroom. The students are investigating the fractional relationships
among cubes and rods of different size. Their explanations refer to the
relationship among two cubes, where five of the small cubes fit along one
side of the large cube. |
