Math Professional Learning - 3rd Grade Purposeful Questioning

The math teachers who attended the NCTM Regional Conference, Houston, Texas in November presented "the most impressive" things they learned at our math professional learning on January 21, 2015.

Laney Horn and Mary Elaine Williamson presented on Purposeful Questioning.  They attended this session led by Linda Gojak, the former President of NCTM.  Posing purposeful questions is one of the 8 effective mathematics teaching practices (NCTM).  Laney and Mary Elaine showed us with how important the question prompt is when we assign a task.  We compared two different prompts:

One of the questions has students arrive at a short answer, and doesn't really tell us what they know about area/perimeter.  The second prompt tells us a great deal about the students' depth of knowledge on area/perimeter.

They also gave us a guide for "what to do" and "what NOT to do" when posing questions to students.

Source:  "Asking Questions that Promote Student Understanding" presentation by Linda Gojak, Immediate Past President of NCTM.  NCTM Houston Regional Conference 2014.