Activity 1

Report and reflect on the lesson

Now you have taught the lesson, it is time to reflect on what happened. Compare the different ways in which you planned the lessons. How did you:

• Organise the room and introduce the task?
• Orchestrate and sustain phases of the work?
• Organise and share ideas as a whole class?

Give examples of helpful and unhelpful discussions that were evident.

• Did pupils listen to and build on each others' reasoning?

Play any recorded extracts of pupil-pupil talk from your lesson and discuss the type of talk this illustrates.

• Can you think of occasions when your own intervention was helpful? When was it unhelpful?

Activity 2

Consider your own role during collaborative work

While pupils are discussing, teachers often find it difficult to know what to do. When and how should they intervene? The character and content of pupil-pupil talk can change dramatically in nature when the teacher joins in!

• What do you do while pupils talk together?
• How do you decide when to intervene and when to leave them struggling?
• What helpful and unhelpful things do you say or do?
• Do you try to 'put pupils right' as soon as you hear them going off track, or do you resist this urge? Why?
• Consider the advice on Handout 5. Which pieces of advice do you find most pertinent?

Activity 3

Devise strategies for pupils who struggle to communicate

In the video clip, Eve, Angela and Marc try out two activities designed to promote speaking and listening in mathematics lessons. These ideas are explained more fully on Handout 7. Watch the video clip.

• What types of talk do these activities generate?
• What other activities could you use to help your pupils improve their speaking and listening?

Activity 4

Plan some strategies for future lessons

Plan some ways of using what you have learned in this PD module to other mathematics lessons that you teach.

• Choose one topic that you plan to teach next week.
• Think of some ways in which you might build in a mathematical discussion of the important ideas in that topic