Verbal Behavior of Students
This week, during a review session, I chose to look at the verbal behavior of students, which I thought would be the best time to find out what students talk about during class. In the link below, I have included a map of the classroom as well as the gender of each student and what types of conversations were said during class.
Verbal Behavior of Students
When I went over the data I collected, I found that 15 students, or 60% of students, used their voice during class. I noticed that the students in the front two seats on the left side were paying more attention to what was going on, but the people on the right side were generally talking about non-subject matter when I walked by. There were a few students that were asking Ms. Resourceful questions or answering questions that were addressed to the class, but didn't actually say much at all.
The talkers were either in a physical activity, football, or just really didn't care about the class. They mainly sat around the outside of the class, but there were a few students that talked while seated around the middle of the class because of question and answer. The non-talkers are pretty smart and could understand the mathematics on their own, which is nice, but this day was a perfect example to be verbal in class.
I did not find a student who gave an irrelevant response. The students that were directed to respond and those who always gave correct responses usually study together outside of class and normally are grouped together with one or two different peers in order to have a little learner diversity in the group.
It seems that three small groups dominated talking in the class, because some are friends that have every class together, and others catch up in math class since it's the only class they have together. Some of the conversations were on the subject matter, but most of each conversation I heard were not about math.
Questions didn't arise with the non-talkers and the talkers didn't question what was going on, because half of the talkers were still in their conversation instead of the whole class discussion about the problem that they had just done. I approached the non-talkers and they were confident that they had the right answers and didn't feel the need to talk to their partners, even though they are instructed to talk to their group mates. Most students had the same statements as Ms. Resourceful in her answer key, but some tried to find different theorems to use instead of sticking to the ones that were given to the class to use.
The students that talked about mathematics were trying to make sure their work was right or finding a different way to prove that two triangles are congruent. However, the students that didn't talk about mathematics were having friendly conversations about stuff they do in their after school activities or something fun they did the night before instead of checking on the problems that were given to them. Granted they got the correct answers each time, but the pods are used for communicating with 2-3 more peers that may have the same answer or a different way that they proved a congruence with triangles.
I think in my classroom that my students will most likely talk about their day or anything that is not math related. It's very common in students that don't want to be in the class but have to take a certain amount of math credits to graduate from high school. This is just one type of verbal communication between students on a daily basis. Students will also be talking to me, but it may be about their day or something that's been going on this past week that's been bothering them. That is definitely alright with me, but I would make sure to steer that conversation to troubles in math if they weren't performing well on assignments or quizzes. It would help me understand a little more of what's going on. Otherwise, I know that I will have at least one student that would like to talk about the math in math class, because the student would either want to get the class over with or he/she is very interested in the subject matter. When conversations in the classroom get off task, I will bring discussions from groups or pods to the whole class and either call on students to answer questions that I have or find volunteers that would like to answer the questions. This will hopefully get students to have more subject matter communication among each other in the classroom.
Verbal Behavior of Students
When I went over the data I collected, I found that 15 students, or 60% of students, used their voice during class. I noticed that the students in the front two seats on the left side were paying more attention to what was going on, but the people on the right side were generally talking about non-subject matter when I walked by. There were a few students that were asking Ms. Resourceful questions or answering questions that were addressed to the class, but didn't actually say much at all.
The talkers were either in a physical activity, football, or just really didn't care about the class. They mainly sat around the outside of the class, but there were a few students that talked while seated around the middle of the class because of question and answer. The non-talkers are pretty smart and could understand the mathematics on their own, which is nice, but this day was a perfect example to be verbal in class.
I did not find a student who gave an irrelevant response. The students that were directed to respond and those who always gave correct responses usually study together outside of class and normally are grouped together with one or two different peers in order to have a little learner diversity in the group.
It seems that three small groups dominated talking in the class, because some are friends that have every class together, and others catch up in math class since it's the only class they have together. Some of the conversations were on the subject matter, but most of each conversation I heard were not about math.
Questions didn't arise with the non-talkers and the talkers didn't question what was going on, because half of the talkers were still in their conversation instead of the whole class discussion about the problem that they had just done. I approached the non-talkers and they were confident that they had the right answers and didn't feel the need to talk to their partners, even though they are instructed to talk to their group mates. Most students had the same statements as Ms. Resourceful in her answer key, but some tried to find different theorems to use instead of sticking to the ones that were given to the class to use.
The students that talked about mathematics were trying to make sure their work was right or finding a different way to prove that two triangles are congruent. However, the students that didn't talk about mathematics were having friendly conversations about stuff they do in their after school activities or something fun they did the night before instead of checking on the problems that were given to them. Granted they got the correct answers each time, but the pods are used for communicating with 2-3 more peers that may have the same answer or a different way that they proved a congruence with triangles.
I think in my classroom that my students will most likely talk about their day or anything that is not math related. It's very common in students that don't want to be in the class but have to take a certain amount of math credits to graduate from high school. This is just one type of verbal communication between students on a daily basis. Students will also be talking to me, but it may be about their day or something that's been going on this past week that's been bothering them. That is definitely alright with me, but I would make sure to steer that conversation to troubles in math if they weren't performing well on assignments or quizzes. It would help me understand a little more of what's going on. Otherwise, I know that I will have at least one student that would like to talk about the math in math class, because the student would either want to get the class over with or he/she is very interested in the subject matter. When conversations in the classroom get off task, I will bring discussions from groups or pods to the whole class and either call on students to answer questions that I have or find volunteers that would like to answer the questions. This will hopefully get students to have more subject matter communication among each other in the classroom.
It seemed like you made mention that a lot of students within the class are sitting in close proximity to their friends. Is this because your CT allows them to choose their own seats? If that isn't the case, maybe adjusting the seating chart will allow the students to focus better on what the teacher is saying. Looking at the map you created, and through your description, it seems as though many students didn't do any talking throughout the period. I noticed you mentioned activities that involve triangles so I'm going to assume you are teaching geometry. Does that also mean your CT is not using the CPM curriculum in your classroom? With CPM usage in my practicum classroom, students are practically forced to work in groups and interact with their peers, so I would assume your class in more direct instruction.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your observations, Ms. Lee! I agree that a certain amount of off task conversation is going to happen in any class but I do wonder what the most effective way your CT has found to bring the whole group back to the content conversation, or encourage small group/pod conversation? Is there a technique you can see yourself using as a student teacher? When there are groups that are having off task conversation, but then can answer correctly, are they needing more work or a faster paced conversation to stay focused? Or is that little bit of break time needed to stay on task for the other parts of math class?
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