Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12: 14 Teaching Practices for Enhancing Learning (Corwin Mathematics Series)

by Peter Liljedahl

In our attempts to differentiate student work across four columns, it is easy to create language for the first column. This column generally describes poor work, and that is easy to articulate. Likewise, the good work represented in the fourth column is easy to clearly explain. It is when we try to differentiate between the two columns in the middle that we get into trouble and end up trying to say that mostly right is different from might have some errors, or primarily rather than usually, or sometimes rather than occasionally. Even if we believe it is clear, it is not clear to the students. They can see that they live in different columns, but they don’t know what they need to do to move from one to the next. Put simply, the information is too much and too nuanced to be useful to them. Like anyone, they were more likely to actually read and respond to something that is more direct, more digestible, and more visual.