Thursday 30 May 2013

Reflection on Classroom Practise and the types of Talk moves/ Questions I ask

I am in the process of analysing my research for my thesis.  My thesis is on the impact my questioning had on student learning of fractions.  I was quite surprised at the amount of questions I asked and the types of questions I asked.

 Have a look at the chart below:


Types of Questions
Amount of Times Asked
Talk Move
Big Idea
Both
Doesn’t initiate any discussion
T- Building on
49 (16.9%)

49


T- Introduce new strategy that has not been developed
14 (4.8%)

14


T- direct teaching
27 (9.3%)



27
T- Go Beyond
75 (25.8%)

75


T-Compare
2 (.68%)

2


T- Initiation- response- evaluation
7 (2.4%)



7
T- Interrogation
73 (25.2%)
23 (31.5%)
50 (68.5%)


T- question unclear
3 (1%)



3
T- Scafolding
32 (11%)

32


T- shares strategy
8 (2.7%)
8



Total of Questions:
290 (49.3%)
31 (10%)
222 (74%)

37 (12.8%)
T- Air Misconceptions
27


27

T- answering with another question
32


32

T- Echo's students words
15
15



T- Letting students just talk
9
9



T- Monitoring students
22

22


T- no confirmation/ in order to push beyond
14


14

T- relate back to context
7

7


T- relate to other problems
11

11


T- Revoicing
39


39

T- Student revoicing
5


5

T- Think, Pair, Share
19


19

T-Wait Time
27


27

T- Checking for understanding
71


71

Total of Talk Moves
298 (50.7%)
24 (8%)
40 (13%)
234 (78.5%)

Totals altogether
588
55 (9.4%)
262 (44.5%)
234 (39.8%)
37 (6.3%)


The chart is split into two different groups Questions (in black) and Talk moves (in red).  I tallied all of them together and in a three week unit I ask or did a total of 588 talk moves/questions.  This first of all surprised my that I ask or did so much.  Most of the time we often think of teaching as just standing there and lecturing, not getting the student involved.  however, that wasn't the most surprising stat.  What really got me going was that even though I may have done more talk moves then asked questions the majority of these actions were related to a big idea.  I wasn't just trying to get the kids to talk about the subject, I wanted them to articulate a big idea of point in mathematics.

So I ask you to think about your practise.  What types of questions are you asking?  What are you doing to make your students talk?  What is the majority of your time in a unit spent on?  Just some things to reflect on.