Reflection questions for teachers for orchestrating productive discussion

Mathematical discussion is important so that students can learn from each other and explain their thinking. There are 5 practices for teachers to orchestrate productive discussion. A brief description of the 5 practices is below.

1. anticipating likely student response to challenging mathematical tasks;
2. monitoring students’ actual responses to the tasks (while students work on the tasks in pairs or small groups);
3. selecting particular students to present their mathematical work during the whole-class discussion;
4. sequencing the student responses that will be displayed in a specific order;
5. connecting different students’ responses and connecting the responses to key mathematical ideas. (Smith & Stein, 2011)

After implementing a mathematical task teachers can reflect on the implementation using the questions below.