A student survey of 26 students from my maths class revealed that almost half of the class have some level of confidence when it comes to speaking up in front of their classmates during the small group sessions. However, there was a noticeable drop in confidence as the size of the group increased to half and then whole class.
Most of the students had tried to use talk moves 1-2 times in recent lessons. Almost two-thirds (61.5%) of those surveyed had asked others to REPEAT their Maths thinking; while almost half (46.2%) had requested others to REASON, while just over one-third (34.6%) had asked others to ADD ON.
NEXT STEPS
Based on the feedback from students, I will move my inquiry forward by taking the following steps:
- Use talking frames for the TALK MOVES to scaffold students as to what to say to others when discussing their maths thinking- Keep group sizes to a maximum of 4 people - this number of people is less intimidating for those students struggling to share their maths thinking in front of others in safe half or whole class settings
- Make time for small group sessions to give more targeted support to students
