The term Letting Go has been used by Van de Walle and in our classrooms to represent how teachers teach THROUGH problems. Where are you on this at this point? Examing the teaching stations, and your own ideas. Key- When should the mathematics teacher let go and when do you believe it is best to do otherwise?
I agree that for students to truly understand mathematics, they must spend a considerable amount of time doing mathematics. By doing math, students can observe relationships and make conjectures and even begin to ask why. Students can begin to make logical arguments for why the things they observe to be true are in fact true.
By letting go, teachers allow students to construct their own ideas. The teacher, however, should provide suitable tasks that challenge students and encourage thought. Students learn better this way versus when things are explained to them by the teacher. They learn from each other.
The teacher guides through strategic questioning and monitoring. S/he should not let go all the time - there are times when the teacher could review, pull ideas together in a way that makes sense, present a mini-lecture on a topic or an overview, help students organize their thoughts.
Most importantly, by letting go, teachers can show students that there may be more than one way to look at a thing and there may be more than one way to arrive at a correct answer.
2 comments:
I totally agree with what you've said. You pointed out some times a teacher should not let go that I didn't think of myself.
Good points. But, I think students should first begin to connect ideas in the during stage when they are working within their groups and summarize as whole group.
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