A teacher’s language choice plays an important role in developing student-to-student discourse.  To begin, it is important to think about the questions that we ask in our math lessons. Teachers can engage students in discourse by posing genuine questions to encourage discussion and debate, and to require students to attend to the mathematics at hand while explaining and justifying their thinking. A question is genuine when the teacher does not know the answer to them and is sincerely looking to

Do you ever feel like you do too much talking in the classroom? If you do, well then, you probably are! It is definitely time to turn control over to the students. Let your students lead the discussion. Yes, it is our job, as teachers, to make sure the class is focused on the topic. But, we can absolutely let the students do the majority of the talking.

As classroom teachers we spend hours setting up our physical classroom environment and spend weeks building a community of learners, so now is the time to really reflect on the things that we say as teachers that will benefit our student’s mathematical conversations. If you choose one or two of these Teacher Discourse Moves to focus on for the next few weeks, you will see your students begin to engage in deeper mathematical conversations, arguments and begin to ask questions of each other.

In honor of National STEM Day, we are sharing this mini lesson as a way to support students during the design process. Allowing students the opportunity to give and receive feedback from others enables them to assume greater ownership of their work and provides students with a valuable skill for lifelong learning. During any kind of activity or project, friendly feedback can be given. This is especially true for design projects, where students can help peers improve their ideas, designs, and mod

On the surface, a text-dependent question (TDQ) is simply a question whose answer can be derived directly from information in the supporting text. However, for

A classroom where active learning takes place is one that includes time for collaboration, various forms of communication, and the freedom for movement. This type of classroom demands that students be engaged learners who create knowledge—as opposed to passive ones who only receive information. It also changes the role of the teacher from one who bestows knowledge to a teacher-coach and mentor who acts as a facilitator and provides support and guidance for learning.