OHHH, I get it now.

I looked at two of the digging deeper articles. The first was an article discussing reform, revolution and paradigm shifts in math education. This article was interesting because it talked about the way content is being taught across all grades. The study focused on pre-service teachers preparing to graduate. It addressed many things that I found interesting. One aspect of the article that I liked was the fact that the pre-service teachers explicitly stated that the cases they looked at helped them to understand how much a teacher is obligated to observe student thinking by continuing to ask questions and get clarification from the students.

I feel that this idea is a re-occurring topic across this course; the importance of making sure each student is able to clearly explain their mathematical reasoning. It is so important as teachers to take the time and ensure that all our students can communicate the objective of the math lessons being taught.

Another great aspect of the article, was the last few sentences that state the importance of a teacher to be able to look at students work through their eyes and be able to view multiple perspectives. Which is something that we all know, but it is a good reminder.

The other article that I looked at was by Liping Ma. It addressed similar ideas about allowing students to express "flexible thinking" and it also talked about making sure that students don't become "locked in" to only one approach to solving math problems.

Again, these are all great ideas! I am teaching long division right now and can see how many of my students can get confused over the topic. I have showed them multiple ways to solve their problems and I have also showed how the problems are broken apart. When I was doing this last week, one of my students said, "OHHHHH, I get it now!" That's probably one of the best phrases you can hear as a teacher.