In this section, teachers describe how they establish community norms so
that each student feels valued and safe to participate. During whole-group dis-
cussions, these teachers actively involve their students in doing mathematics,
making connections to prior work, and targeting powerful strategies that are
accessible. Critical work also takes place well before the discussion. Teachers fig-
ure out ahead of time where their students might have difficulty following the
conversation and plan accommodations accordingly, such as including examples
of students’ work from prior sessions or providing concrete materials or repre-
sentations as an entry point. Sometimes the accommodations include pulling
together a small group to preview the day’s activity so they can follow and par-
ticipate during the whole-group time or rehearsing one of their strategies so they
might later share in the whole group. This extra practice is often key to sup-
porting these students in building their mathematical understanding through
talk.
Taking Responsibility for Learning
The teachers who wrote the essays in this section found that their students who
struggle often do not see themselves as capable learners. These students tended to
not ask for help, participate in groups, or begin or complete work independently.
This “learned helplessness” frequently results from experiences of failure and low
expectations. The authors of these essays believe that their students who struggle
can learn and they find strategies to help them do so. They developed routines to
help students feel comfortable and get them started, beginning with making sure
the students know what they are being asked to solve. Sometimes this involved
retelling a story problem or making accommodations so that the students were
able to make sense of the mathematics. The teachers also engaged the students in
evaluating their own learning, asking them to answer questions such as “Did I
actively participate in learning? Did I use everythingI know to help myself with
the problem?”
This section is closely tied with the Linking Assessment and Teaching sec-
tion, because when teachers assessed their students of concern, they often found
out that the students’ lack of confidence stemmed from gaps in their learning.
They used assessment to find students’ strengths to help build both their confi-
dence and their mathematical understanding.
Working Collaboratively
During the course of our project, we were fortunate to collaborate with Karen
Mutch-Jones, a researcher studying collaboration between classroom and special
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