Participation is an important part of learning to make sense of mathematics.
But ask yourself, “What counts as participation?”
In this episode, we talk with Dr. Juanita Silva from Texas State University about an expanded definition of participation—and what it might mean for how we engage with and value our students’ thinking.
Mike Wallus: Participation is an important part of learning to make sense of mathematics. But stop and ask yourself, “What counts as participation?” In this episode, we'll talk with Dr. Juanita Silva from Texas State University about an expanded definition of participation and what it might mean for how we engage with and value our students' thinking.
Welcome, Juanita. Thanks for joining us on the podcast.
Juanita Silva: Hi. Thank you for inviting me. I'm excited to talk about this topic.
Mike: I think I'd like to start by asking you to just talk about the meaning of participation. What is it and what forms can participation take in an elementary math classroom?
Juanita: Well, there's a mixture of nonverbal and verbal communication. And you can add in there gestures [as a] form of communication, not just in an interconnected space, but also thinking about students’ respect. And it's not just bidirectional, but there’s a lot of things that are kind of added in that space.
Mike: So, it strikes me that when I was a classroom teacher, when I look back, I probably overemphasized verbal communication when I was assessing my students' understanding of math concepts. And I have a feeling that I'm not alone in that. And I'm wondering if you could talk about the way that we've traditionally thought about participation and how that might have impacted student learning?
Juanita: Yes, this is a great question. In thinking about, “What does this look like?”, “How to participate in the classroom?” Mostly teachers think about this as whole-group discussions or in small-group discussions. And I emphasize the word their discussions, where students can share verbally how they thought about the problem. So, for example, if a student is solving a fraction word problem, the teacher may ask, “OK, so how did you solve this problem? Can you share your strategy with the class? What does that look like?” And so, the student sometimes will say, “If I'm solving a fraction word problem about four parts or four chocolate bars, then I can cut those leftovers into four parts.” So that's usually what we think of, as in our teaching and practice in elementary schooling. We think of that as verbal communication and verbal participation, but there are others. (laughs)
Mike: Let's talk about that. I think part of what you