Student and Teacher Roles in Contemporary Classrooms

Parts of the ‘Contemporary' Mathematics Lesson	The student . . . . .
Before: Activate	Students develop an understanding of the problem Students recall prior learning Students ask questions and participate in discussion for further clarification Students develop possible strategies and discuss them with their peers
During: Acquire/Apply	Students share their work within their small groups, check answers and strategies, ask questions to provoke further clarification and elaboration All students share their strategies, listen to the ideas of others, question what they do not understand and defend their thinking Students are working with hands-on-material such as manipulatives Students are discussing using mathematical language  Students find ways of displaying their information
After: Connect/Reflect	The class gathers strategies by watching presented strategies Students defend their strategies or develop new ones based on what they have seen Students engage in discussion on key concepts and ideas STudents make connections between key concepts and ideas Students can participate in a gallery walk where they can examine and comment on the work of their peers

Parts of the Contemporary Math Lesson	The Teacher...
Before: Activate	Sets up classroom and materials up and ready to go before students enter Prepares a variety of manipulatives and materials to work with  Begins the lesson by asking the student to draw upon their prior knowledge or brain storm  The teacher may stand at the front of the class, circulate, or sit in a visible place (desktop) to maintain conversational tone.
During: Acquire/Apply	Teacher groups students for the task as required Teacher provides instructions regarding the problem that focus on higher order thinking Teacher circulates during task to correct and assist where necessary Listen for discussion and use of academic language Understand student strategies  The teacher is visible and available for help
After: Connect/Reflect	Facilitates student-driven discussion  Helps students reviews solutions and discuss what works and what doesn’t work Suggests areas for improvement and further opportunity to apply learning to other problems The teacher organizes student work

Lesson Ideas

For information on how to conduct various interactive problem-based math lessons check out Edugains.

Food TV!

The analogy I used to introduce this blog was that of a food-tv show host and it's audience members. Let me explain this a bit more...

The job of the food-tv host is to develop recipes and demonstrate the recipe to the audience in an easy to understand step-by step format. The audience remains passive, they watch the host prepare the meal, take notes (or get the recipe online) and they attempt to follow that prescribed recipe at home following each step. This is the traditional approach to math. The teacher acts as the food-tv hosts, prepares the lesson, demonstrates the algorithms and concepts on the board while students act as an audience by taking notes and watching. They then attempt to follow the prescribed concepts and algorithms to the mathematical problems. Imagine a food-tv show where the audience becomes the host! They work together and start developing recipes on their own, they experiment, try out new ingredients, figure out what works together and what doesn't.  The host simply presents the ingredients, assists when necessary and asks questions about what the audience is making. That's what should be occuring in math classrooms, students should be developing concepts on their own, experimenting, testing strategies, working with manipulatives and figuring out what works and what doesn't work..