Hobo mathamatics

Some of you have heard this story already so forgive me for being repetitive, but I found it to be so eye-opening I could resist a blog entry.

I have been working a lot with my dyad teacher on student led discussions and the importance of letting the students come up with their own ideas and methods for solving problems. We have been looking at this in Alison's class as well. As the teacher, we facilitate the discussion, but the ideas come from the students. When they are thinking and reasoning through a problem themselves, it becomes more concrete than when a teacher just tells them how to solve a problem or gives them the answer. Even if students come up with wrong answers or assumptions, eventually they will come to a problem where that method doesn't work and they will have to re-evaluate these methods.

In theory, this is a great way to get students engaged and thinking about problem solving, but in reality it is hard to do. I really struggled with this during my first science lesson. As I led the discussion I tried to steer students in the direction I wanted them to go and talked about as much as my students had. I knew it hadn't gone well but I was afraid of what might happen if I gave control of the discussion over to my students.

Then we had a math class last wednesday that totally blew my mind. We were studying linear equations and my dyad teacher was leading a discussion on independent and dependent variables. Students were trying to figure out what independent and dependent meant in terms of a linear equation. One student came up with a very random idea where he was describing a situation involving a hobo (not sure if that is totally PC but that was the word the student used). It didn't make any sense at all. My dyad teacher took in stride though and simply called on another student, asking if he agreed with the hobo statement or if he had something else to say. The student replied that he agreed with the other student's hobo statement. Oh No! was all I could think. This is what happens when students lead their own discussions. Now we are going to get way off topic and end up talking about hobos and the rest of the class is going to be so confused!

To my complete and utter amazement the student instead replied that he thought the hobo was like the dependent variable because he was dependent on some person to give him money. This person with the money was like the independent variable because he didn't rely at all on the hobo. And just like that, not only were we back on track, but the students were totally engaged in this hobo idea.

Realizing that my students were perfectly capable of leading their own discussions, I tried hard the next time not to interject my ideas into the discussion. It went a lot better, but even so, I struggled with keeping my mouth shut. We want our students to have the right answers so badly, that we forget that the process of getting there is just as important. We take away from the learning experience when we just hand those answers over and the student never understands the 'why' or the 'how' of it. I realize this and yet it is still a struggle. Maybe as I keep practicing though, my students will continue to surprise me. They usually do.