Guided Math Conferences Chapter 5

Brenda at Primary Inspired is the organizer of the blog study on Guided Math Conferences. If you don't have a copy, TpT seems to be the best place to get it right now.  Amazon isn't stocking it yet.

I'm so grateful to be part of it and hosting Chapter 5 along with Carmen from Exploring Elementary.  Be sure to go here to read her post about Chapter 5.

"Implementing Conferences in the Guided Math Classroom" is the title of Chapter 5 and it's all about how to make conferences happen in your classroom.  Here are some of the suggestions Ms. Sammons makes for when to conference: 

• As students enter the classroom
• While students are working independently
• During transitions
• Just before or just after meeting with a small group (Bring one child back a little early or have one stay a little longer.)

I'm thinking mine will most likely take place in the first 5-10 minutes of math class as students work on the math starter for the day and get settled.  We group and rotate for math, so this seems like a good time for me to fit it in. 

I LOVE the section where she addresses how often to meet with students and the idea of "fairness".  We need to remember that doing what's right for each student does not mean doing the same thing for each student.  Some students will require more conferences, either to challenge higher students or to support lower students.  Some students are so self-regulating they'll need little guidance or prodding from us.  Know your students well enough to know how much conferencing each needs. 

A large portion of this chapter is devoted to procedures and routines with independent work.  In order for you to be successful at having time for conferences, students must be able to work independently with only emergent interruptions to you.  She even mentions the book Boushey and Moser's book Daily 5: Fostering Literacy in the Elementary Grades as a reference for teaching routines and procedures.  I love how these ladies outline teaching procedures.  Their book is well worth the read just for that.  It perfectly outlines gradual release and turning all responsibility to students during independent time thus freeing you to confer with students and work with small groups. 

It is imperative that you write down or have a very firm understanding of what your expectations are so you can clearly teach them to students and hold student to them.  Take your time at the beginning of the year to make sure students are independent before rushing into content.  Content can be taught while working on expectations and routines, just make the content secondary for the first few weeks.  You'll be glad you did when you're able to teach more effectively later in the year rather than continually spending time reviewing and being frustrated about behavior later in the year. 

I use the ideas from The Daily 5 to teach independence routines in my classroom, how do you teach independence?  Feel free to add your comments to this post or link up your own post below. 

An InLinkz Link-up

Guided Math Conferences Chapter 1

This really is a summer of professional reading for me, and I'm loving it!  I'm excited to join Brenda for this study of Guided Math Conferences by Laney Sammons. Don't have a copy? Click on the link to get in on Amazon.  

I attempted some guided math last year with a little success and am looking forward to doing it a bit better this year.  My grade level team decided last year to ability group our students across the grade in math.  I spent most of the year with the students that needed the most support and adding guided math was very helpful.  

I did conferring with my students at least at the end of every unit.  Part of our assessment of students included an interview on the concepts.  It was incredibly helpful to see what students were thinking and understood as I watched them work through the problem or heard them orally respond.  I haven't done that since moving to fifth grade, and it would be so valuable to understand what they really understand.  

The first chapter of Guided Math Conferences is "Conferring with Young Mathematicians".  This chapter explains the differences between many types of conferring you might do.  What I described above was more of an interview.  Last year, I tried to do some small-group instruction and sometimes did a bit of conferences.  Conferences is the area I want to really improve on next year. This involves taking a look at the student's current work and taking them where there currently are in understanding to the next step.  To help me do this, I'm going to keep a list of student names in a checklist on a clipboard.  Each time I conference with a student, I'll write the date in the box next to their name.  When everyone has a date in the first column, I'll start marking the next column.  This will be a good start for me.  Once I get good at that, I'll add notes to my system, hopefully by November.  I think adding notes right away will overwhelm me, so I'm going to start out with forming the habit first.  

Be sure to check out the posts on this chapter from the hosts, Thinking of Teaching and Primary Inspired.  Clicking on their names will take you to their Chapter 1 posts.  Several bloggers have also linked up with them, like I have, so be sure to read those posts as well.  You're welcome to link up too or add your comments or questions in any of our comment sections.  

Do you confer with your students?  What type of conferring do you do or plan to do?