At a Glance...

Learning Goals, Success Criteria and Descriptive Feedback

Before beginning this learning situation, it is essential to make the learning goals, based on the curriculum expectations and content, explicit so that they are known and understood by all students. This will ensure that students are aware of the learning goals of the lesson. The success criteria can then be developed and understood through a variety of instructional strategies, such as using examples of student work, co-constructing the success criteria or self-assessing how the criteria have been met. These strategies allow for student engagement and a shared understanding of the steps needed to achieve the learning goals.

It is important to make the learning goals and success criteria visible by posting them in the classroom for students to refer to throughout the lesson. Descriptive feedback related to the criteria provides the specific information students need to achieve the intended learning goals.

By providing descriptive feedback on multiple occasions, educators help students develop the skills to assess their own learning and reflect on the criteria. In this learning situation, a good time for descriptive feedback is during the Active Learning phase. Students model different combinations of a given amount of money. Students work and communicate in small groups, and, with thoughtful questioning, educators check for understanding and direct students to the criteria to adjust or justify their work.

During the Review phase, some solutions may require descriptive feedback from the educator to ensure that the student has the necessary support to revise their thinking to apply to a new context.

Problem-Solving Tasks and Experiences

This learning situation, where the student must make several combinations of Canadian currency, is a problem-solving experience, as it gives students the opportunity to reason, communicate, represent, make connections, and justify thinking. This learning situation has many entry points and all students will be able to participate and propose solutions using their strategies, as well as their critical and creative thinking.

This approach promotes accessibility for all students and the exchange of a variety of mathematical strategies and ideas. This learning situation can be differentiated by using different numbers for the work teams (smaller numbers for a less complex exercise or larger numbers for a more complex exercise), making the task accessible yet challenging for the students.

Math Conversations

By planning lessons like this, which emphasize collaboration and groupwork, the math conversations are ongoing. These conversations allow students to express themselves and react to the mathematical ideas presented. The role of educators will be to ask open-ended, thought-provoking questions to stimulate thinking and allow for multiple responses. This interaction through questioning must be carefully planned to highlight key concepts, skills, or specific representations to promote student progress. Educators are encouraged to anticipate students' questions and answers in order to make the exercise even more strategic (for example, by anticipating some common errors). As soon as the learning situation begins, educators should ask questions that are accessible to all students and encourage them to share their ideas in the class group. As students are engaged in solving the problem, questioning and discussion should promote their reasoning and justification as a group and develop their critical thinking. During Review, the questioning should support rich mathematical conversation in the whole group and provide educators with the opportunity to assess student understanding of the concepts being learned.

Flexible Groupings

Flexible groupings can foster collaboration and give students the opportunity to participate in rich math conversations, learn from each other, and evolve their mathematical thinking. These structures allow students to work independently of the educator, while benefiting from the support of their peers. It is the intentional combination of large group, small group, pair, and individual work that can foster a rich mathematical learning environment. For this learning situation, the initial scenario can be done in a whole class group. During the Active Learning phase, small groups of two or three are preferable to promote the participation of each student during the monetary equivalence. Review in the whole class group allows students to hear the ideas of others, 
while bringing their own ideas to the discussion. The choice of flexible groupings can be adapted according to the needs of your class group.