Journal 4

1. One teaching practice for teachers is to facilitate meaningful mathematical

discourse. This teaching practice facilitates productive discussions among students by
focusing on reasoning and justification. A teacher would strategically select and
sequence students' strategies for whole-class discussion and make explicit
connections between students' techniques and ideas. This is evidenced in the
Supplemental Educative Features – Discourse document (p. 62) when explaining the
need for students to be central in classroom instruction. The importance of a teacher
to facilitate classroom discussion is essential, and simply listing one problem-solving
approach after another does not engage students. There are ways that teachers can
help guide the classroom discussion to implement important classroom goals and
make explicit connections between students' ideas. Teachers can prepare before class
by asking themselves questions such as "What do I want this discussion to
accomplish?" or "What do I want all students to take away from this discussion"
(Van de Walle et al. 63). Teachers can also observe the students' discussion and come
up with more questions focusing on the student's reasoning and justification.
Teachers can also use guidelines for whole-class discussion such as setting up norms
and reviewing them frequently, using wait time to give students time to think, and
having clear visuals that everyone can see and refer to.
Another teaching practice for teachers is to pose purposeful questions. These
should be questions that probe students' thinking and that require explanation and
justification. The teacher could enact this teaching practice to build on students' ideas
and avoid funnelling, such as directing one correct answer. The questions should
make students' ideas and mathematics more visible to examine the ideas more
closely. Teachers can provide an appropriate amount of wait time to allow students
to organize their thoughts. There are guidelines for whole-classroom discussions in
the Supplemental Educative Features – Content; some tips include "use the wait time
to give students time to think" (Van de Walle et al. 64). Teachers can also ask
questions that probe students' thinking and that require explanation. The teacher can
observe the classroom discussion and think of meaningful questions to integrate the
goal for the meeting and see where students may be struggling.
Another teaching practice for teachers is to build procedural fluency from
conceptual understanding. Teachers can enable that mathematical practice by
encouraging students to use and explain their reasoning and strategies to solve
tasks. Teachers can make explicit connections between methods produced by
students and conventional approaches and procedures. Computational fluency is
highlighted in the Supplemental Educative Features Discourse document (p. 45)
emphasizes computational fluency. The document highlights that when fluency is
achieved, students can look at the problem and choose a solution strategy that they
can carry out easily without losing track of their steps. The document includes the
need for computational fluency through developing curiosity about numbers and how
they work and learning to articulate, represent, and justify generalizations. Teachers
can enable fluency by encouraging students to explain their reasoning and strategies
to solve problems.

2a. Performance goals show what students will be able to do as an outcome of

engaging in a lesson. The learning goals explicitly declare what students will know
about mathematics as a result of engaging in a particular lesson. The learning goal
needs to be communicated with adequate specificity that can guide a teacher's
decision-making during the class.
2b. The learning goals explicitly declare what students will know about mathematics
as a result of a lesson. Learning goals explain tasks that engage students in
reasoning and problem solving and are essential in supporting students' learning
mathematics with understanding. The learning goal needs to be communicated with
sufficient specificity to guide a teacher's decision-making during the class. Learning
goals support students' problem solving by providing students with the opportunity
to engage in mathematics practices. Students complete processes such as making
sense of problems and persist in solving them, deliberating abstractly and
quantitatively, and constructing arguments and reasoning. These are essential to
developing mathematical proficiency.

3a. A performance goal with a high-level mathematics task is not consistent with
the learning goals. This combination of a high-level mission and a performance goal
is not optimal for providing students with the opportunity to learn mathematics
with understanding. Performance goals show what students will be able to do as an
outcome of engaging in a lesson but are low-level mathematical tasks. Students
may have correct or incorrect solutions but have a limited understanding of the
targeted mathematical ideas. Some issues that can arise are that the students may
not understand the high-level mathematical idea and may struggle with not coming
up with a solution. It may be so challenging that they give up or feel the need to quit
before even starting.

3b. If a teacher establishes a learning goal but pairs it with a low-level task that
requires only the application of a known procedure, students may struggle. For
example, if the teacher provides no resources and asks students only for the product,
a teacher may imply that students have a procedure for solving such tasks. So,
students may have a limited understanding of the targeted mathematical ideas. For
example, if a teacher's goal is for students only to find the product, then the low-level
task would be a good match for this goal. Students may receive the correct solution
but may have no idea how to justify or explain their reasoning.