After completing the Car Caravan task with our students, our primary team gathered to discuss the results. Click on the titles below for the detailed Kindergarten learning stories.
What similarities did we encounter when presenting this problem?
- The problem was very open-ended and we had trouble getting students to developing mathematical wonderings.
- Students both in Kindergarten and Grade 1/2 needed lots of prompting to develop mathematical wonderings.
- Most primary students noticed the colours first, the floor and some talked about the shape.
- The main observations were about the colours and shapes.
- Regardless of the Grade, students in both Gr. 1/2 and in Kindergarten came up with wonderings that were mathematical at all.
- When the Car Caravan was presented in a small group to target Kindergarten students, educators found that they were distracted easily.
- Some students were overwhelmed by their own questions.
- Students observations demonstrated their fixed mindset Ex. Insisting that their observation was correct and was not open to others’ ideas.
- We discovered students’ comfort level in using counting strategies.
What strategies worked?
- It was best to take the small group out of the classroom to help students focus when presenting the Car Caravan photo and to be able to discuss their wonderings.
- Students needed prompting to get them thinking more mathematically:
- What mathematical question do you think I’m going to ask you?
- You see circles? How many circles do you see?
Teachers Successes:
- Presented the challenge so that students had a voice
- Gave students the liberty to discuss their wonderings without any time constraints
- Clarified their answers by repeating their answers so all could hear and think about it.
- Gave everyone the opportunity to join at any point (kindergarten)
- Praised them for the time and effort put into their work or for any participation or idea suggested whether great or small.
- Allowed students to choose any materials to show their thinking
- Set up the materials as a tabletop activity with the intention of allowing them to build the car caravan in their own way
Next Steps:
- Grade 2s responses seemed to list various possible counting strategies but didn’t show any reasoning for choosing those strategies. We decided that they needed to continue to extend their thinking by doing a third lesson and asking:
- Which counting strategy is the most efficient? Why?
- What other strategies /prompting/questions can we use to help students develop their mathematical wonderings?
- Educators will continue to work on using more language to help pull out the proportional reasoning
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