Using Reciprocal Teaching in the Classroom.
Return to: ETAP 623 Spring 2020 (Zhang) | Olivia's Portfolio Page] | Reciprocal Teaching in Mathematics | About Me
Navigation Links: Unit 1 | Unit 2 | Unit 3 | Unit 4
Rolling it out:
Now that we've discussed what Reciprocal teaching looks like in mathematics, I'm sure you are questioning how you can begin utilizing this wonderful practice with your students to build independent lifelong learners with affection communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking skills. To roll out reciprocal math I did it over the course of a weeks time, spending the first day introducing, and then gradually releasing the responsibility as we spoke about in Unit 3. These are the steps I took in my classroom that I feel will be helpful. Keep in mind these are over a multi-day period, and you can and should break them apart over what you feel will work best for your students:
1) Start by introducing the roles to your students first, and talk about what each role looks like and sounds like.
2) Show them this video to demonstrate what it may look like
3) Introduce them to the graphic organizer, and use this to go through each role as a whole group. This will help the students to understand the flow, as well as be able to see what it is going to look like at a large scale before you break them apart into smaller groups.
4) Group students either homogeneously or heterogeneously as discussed in Unit 1 and break them into groups and assign their rolls. You can rotate rolls amongst the group each time you do this or have each student stick to a roll in the beginning until students become comfortable with the process.
Each Group should receive
- a folder with a graphic organizer for each student.
- Role cards that state each students responsibilities in that role
- Resource rings for each student including sentence starters, math vocabulary, mini sized anchor charts you have around the classroom.
- A checklist for the group leader.
5) Assign a group leader to check off each step as you go through the process. This will be their job when you release the responsibility to them going forward.
6) Set a 2 minute timer, and allow students to go through each role within their groups but at your pace. This gives your students the opportunity to ask any questions after each role does their part in the group.
7) Assign them a new word problem and allow them to work in their groups at their own pace. Circulate the room and monitor their progress.
8) You will notice student become comfortable and are able to move on on their own as you continue to practice. Pull your groups that you feel could use some support to work with your guidance until they are able to facilitate amongst each other. You can also use groups you see that are strong in specific roles to fishbowl to other students.
Roles
In choosing to incorporate reciprocal teaching into my classroom for a student centered approach that encompassed all the 21st Century Skills I found imperative to create roles that worked best for my students and how I intended to group them. You can recreate these roles or develop what skills each student touches on in your classroom based on what you feel your students will benefit from most. The Roles I used and the order they are used in is as as followed"
1)Reader
2)Identifier
3)Planner
everyone in the group solves the problem independently
4)Checker
Within each role, these are the responsibilities
| The Reader | Identifier | Planner | - | Checker |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| reads the problem twice and helps the group visualize what the problem is talking about | helps their group members locate all important information by circling the numbers, boxing key words, and underlining the question of the word problem. This can also be known as the cubes method. | The planner can use an "I notice/I wonder" strategy for their group, reiterating what was identified about the problem and what operations they think they will use based on the key words, numbers, and questions. They will then use the "I wonder" portion to explain to their group what the best strategy would be based on that the question leaves them 'wondering'. | Each group member takes a few moments to solve the problem on their own based on the strategies the planner helped to discuss | facilitates a conversation using math talking stems to not necessarily check for correct answers, but to allow eachother to talk about the strategies they used and why they chose to do it that way. |
In Conclusion
This unit is simply just to help you conclude your thoughts on Reciprocal Math, and provide you with resources of which you can use in your classroom.
To conclude this course, please use the discussion tab at the top of this page to summarize your thinking. In your post please answer these two questions.
How can you see reciprocal teaching helping your students
How well do you feel this course prepared you to begin using this practice with your students
Materials/Resources
In this section I am including resources I have created when using reciprocal teaching in my classroom. Please use these materials in whichever way best fits your classroom needs, I am happy to provide these to help develop more student centered classrooms.
File:Reciprocal Math Steps Poster.pdf
File:Reciprocal Math Organizer.docx
File:Reciprocal Math Resource Rings.pdf