Teacher Checklist for Leading an Investigations Lesson
Introduction
✓
I modeled the problem, activity, or game clearly - - without giving away too much of the math?
✓
My students understood what their task was to be and my expectations of them.
Exploration
Student Participation:
✓
Students efficiently moved into the activities?
✓
Students were familiar with classroom expectations. They
… formed groups and worked together
… knew where they should work,
… knew how to handle materials, etc.?
✓
The necessary materials were easily accessible?
✓
The students worked cooperatively and respectfully with each other?
Teacher participation:
✓
I observed and listened carefully to students? I recorded a few anecdotal notes.
✓
I asked questions that helped me understand how students are thinking?
✓
I helped students articulate their thinking, both orally and in writing?
✓
I encouraged students to keep track of their work and be able to explain or show their thinking?
✓
I asked probing questions that push students’ mathematical thinking further?
✓
I was able to make decisions about how to modify the experiences appropriately to meet the
differentiated needs of individuals and groups of students?
Lesson Closing – Summary
✓
I established a classroom atmosphere in which a high value is placed on how my students
communicate their thinking about a solution to a problem rather than on merely telling them a rote
procedure so they can get a correct solution?
✓
I valued all students’ input? Wrong answers and unclear thinking is part of the learning process. I
encouraged my students to share all their thinking.
✓
I facilitated class discussions about important mathematical ideas?
✓
I moved students toward posing conjectures and drawing correct generalizations?
✓
The students…
… talked more than me (the teacher)?
… asked questions of each other and not just of me (the teacher)?
Adapted from
Beyond Arithmetic
by Jan Mokros, Susan Jo Russell, Karen Economopoulos p. 42 (three
authors of Investigations)