vmt-award-2024_47--2-_purple

Good Reads

Section Editor: Jean Mistele In this section, we feature mathematics literature that is appropriate for K - 12 Mathematics instruction. If you use specific literature for your mathematics classroom and wish to share it with the Virginia Mathematics Teacher Community, please respond to the Call for Manuscripts. This book review was provided by Gretchen Lee, Ashley Dreesch, and Ashley Carneal from Longwood University.

5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathe matics Discussion

Why use higher - level tasks?

Effective teaching of mathematics engages students in solving and discussing tasks that promote mathe matical reasoning and problem solving and allow multiple entry points and varied solution strategies (NCTM, 2014, p.17). These multiple entry points allow students to make sense of the mathematics for themselves. They also provide the foundation to engage in meaningful mathematics discussion. A challenge teachers face when using higher - level tasks, is giving students the opportunity to engage in productive struggle (Warshauer, 2014). Provid ing too much support or telling students what to do interferes with students making sense of the mathe matics and reduces the cognitive demand of the task by focusing on procedures and algorithms. Pri or to the pandemic, many students shied away from productive struggle that results in some students lacking confidence and exhibiting learned helpless ness. Remote learning increased learned helpless ness when parents and caretakers provided the an swers. This interferes with the students developing their problem solving skills. In Figure 1 below, there are three different tasks that all require students to solve the problem of 8 x ⅝. However, the levels of cognitive demand for each task are different. Task A has a lower level of cognitive demand because students need to recall math facts to solve it. Task B appears to be a higher - level task because of the story problem context, but the problem lowers the cognitive demand be- What makes a higher - level task?

By Margaret S. Smith and Mary Kay Stein

Recent studies have shown that all academic areas will be impacted by the pandemic; however, math is predicted to have the largest gap. Three studies used the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) data that predicted students learned be tween half to a full year less math in 2020 - 21 when compared to a typical year (Sawchuk and Sparks, 2020). Why is math predicted to have more of a loss than other areas? Traditionally, parents spend time with their children reading for entertainment, which is an easier transition with remote learning for Literacy. However, math, especially in the ele mentary grades, rely on manipulatives and hands on learning to build conceptual understanding, which is a heavier lift for parents Most adults learned algorithms that focused on procedural flu ency, which can cause confusion and frustration when trying to help their child at home During the academic year, 2021 - 2022, teachers will need to be ready to meet students where they are, help students narrow their learning gap from last year, and prepare them for the following school year coursework. We believe teachers can accom plish these goals by implementing higher - level mathematical tasks in the classroom and leading meaningful mathematics discussions. Higher - level tasks provide the foundation to implement the 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions as recommended by Smith and Stein (2011). Where do we go from here?

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 47, no. 2

50