You may find that some students do not work systematically when organizing their data. What can you do to organize your data? If students have found equations, focus their attention on improving explanations, or exploring alternative methods. How can you be sure your explanation works in all cases? Ask another group if your argument makes sense. Some stronger explanations are shown in the Sample Responses to Discuss. Make a note of student approaches to the task Give each small group of students a copy of the Sample Responses to Discuss. Choose the samples of student work that match your students’ level of understanding. Display the following questions on the board or document camera using the provided sheet: Analyzing Student responses to discuss. Describe the problem solving approach the student used. You might, for example: Describe the way the student has organized the data. Describe what the student did to calculate the number of leaves the caterpillar eats. Explain what the student could do to make his or her solution correct or clearer if they calculated correctly. This analysis task will give students an opportunity to evaluate a variety of alternative approaches to the task, without providing a complete solution strategy. During small-group work, support student thinking as before. Also, check to see which of the explanations students find more difficult to understand. Identify one or two of these approaches to discuss in the plenary discussion. Note similarities and differences between the sample approaches and those the students took in small-group work. Whole-class discussion comparing different approaches (20 minutes) Organize a whole-class discussion to consider different approaches to the task. The intention is for you to focus on getting students to understand the methods of working out the answers, rather than just numerical solutions. Focus your discussion on parts of the two small-group tasks students found difficult. and talk about different approaches. Let’s stop Ask the students to compare the different solution methods. Read through your original responses and think about what you have learned this lesson. Using what you have learned, try to improve your work. Which approach did you like best? Why? Which approach did you find it most difficult to understand? If your group used that method, can you explain that for us?
You may find that some students do not work systematically when organizing their data. What can you do to organize your data? If students have found equations, focus their attention on improving explanations, or exploring alternative methods. How can you be sure your explanation works in all cases? Ask another group if your argument makes sense. Some stronger explanations are shown in the Sample Responses to Discuss. Make a note of student approaches to the task Give each small group of students a copy of the Sample Responses to Discuss. Choose the samples of student work that match your students’ level of understanding. Display the following questions on the board or document camera using the provided sheet: Analyzing Student responses to discuss. Describe the problem solving approach the student used. You might, for example: Describe the way the student has organized the data. Describe what the student did to calculate the number of leaves the caterpillar eats. Explain what the student could do to make his or her solution correct or clearer if they calculated correctly. This analysis task will give students an opportunity to evaluate a variety of alternative approaches to the task, without providing a complete solution strategy. During small-group work, support student thinking as before. Also, check to see which of the explanations students find more difficult to understand. Identify one or two of these approaches to discuss in the plenary discussion. Note similarities and differences between the sample approaches and those the students took in small-group work. Whole-class discussion comparing different approaches (20 minutes) Organize a whole-class discussion to consider different approaches to the task. The intention is for you to focus on getting students to understand the methods of working out the answers, rather than just numerical solutions. Focus your discussion on parts of the two small-group tasks students found difficult. Let’s stop and talk about different approaches. Ask the students to compare the different solution methods. Read through your original responses and think about what you have learned this lesson. Using what you have learned, try to improve your work. Which approach did you like best? Why? Which approach did you find it most difficult to understand? If your group used that method, can you explain that for us?