King Student Work Week 7

This week I led the Fast Math lesson warm up in which students were asked to round various decimal numbers to the nearest whole number. The students were given 2 minutes to complete the task then I led a class discussion to find the correct answers. During the class discussion I called on a student to read the unrounded decimal number and the rounded answer. I then asked the student, whether their answer was right or wrong, to explain why they rounded up or down. Being asked to explain their thinking was something that many students struggled with, but after talking to my MT I found out that the students are not used to having to explain their thinking.

In order to have students be more successful in the future during class discussions that require deeper explanation of why they did what they did, I will need to scaffold their thinking and give them some sentence starters. With this particular class discussion, there is little I can do to further their thinking because the concept being discussed is pretty straightforward and there is really only one way to come to the correct answer. One thing I can do to advance student thinking is to add additional digits to the numbers I am asking the students to round, which will create a situation where students will potentially have to round twice.

Note: Since this lesson and discussion was taught, the class has had more practice with rounding and seems to have a better understanding of rounding.