Classroom Discussions provides an excellent resource for bringing discussion into your maths lessons. It is a carefully structured book - first providing the background for the approach, the theory, the strategies themselves, and finally some vignettes, that I always find useful to put the strategies into context. In fact, the strategies are outlined using vignettes, enabling us to really see their effectiveness.
The "talk moves" suggested are in actuality nothing terribly new, just new in this context of mathematics discussion. If you are the kind of teacher used to giving out questions or worksheets, and telling students answers, then this will be a quite different approach. This approach is probably more used in subjects that lend themselves easily to inquiry - science, humanities, even literacy studies. But this book will show you that mathematics, too, can be discussed in an inquiry fashion.
By using the five talk moves suggested, your maths lessons will be richer, and student understanding will be deeper. Isn't that what we're on about?
The authors make a few poignant points early on in the book. This method of discussion will also assist the students in their development of self-regulation, as it provides the necessary practise they will need to hone that skill (p8). Students must provide evidence for their claims - especially if they are going to disagree with another student (p9). The ground rules for respectful discourse must be laid down early, as the kind of discussions they will be having require it.
When mathematical concepts are logical in fashion, for example, 2 cats and 2 dogs, how many animals? then a discussion can be had based around it (probably not that example though!). However, when concepts are linked to social conventions, such as mathematical symbols, there is no way for students to 'discover' this by themselves, so it is better to just tell them. (p18)
The vignettes at the end of the book are illustrative, in that the first one (out of two) goes horribly wrong, and it is made clear how to fix the problems. One of the things I noticed in the that vignette is that students are required to ask other students to repeat what they had said if they did not hear or were not listening. I think that is a valuable tool, as it makes students responsible for their listening and learning - encouraging them to take a more active role in it.
I will be slowly activating these talk moves into my maths classes - but, as the authors warn, only limiting myself to one new thing at a time!
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