2022年2月20日星期日

Week 6: Response to The Writing on the Board by Artemeva and Fox

Two Research Questions:

Question 1: What are the genres of teaching university mathematics in lecture classes? Or, what repeats across global and local contexts?

Question 2: What differs in the enactment of these genres in local contexts?

Summary:

In this article, Artemeva and Fox are focusing on undergraduate mathematics lectures in 33 classrooms, in 10 universities and 7 countries in order to explore a pedagogical genre at play in university mathematics lecture classrooms. Across all the observed contexts, the study suggests that chalk talk, namely, writing out a mathematical narrative on the board while talking aloud, is the central pedagogical genre. Despite the participants from different backgrounds, using different languages in the lectures, all of them used the genre of chalk talk in response to similar situations in differing linguistic contexts.

In addition, this study also finds evidence of the same genre occurring across global and local contexts and across participants' differing personal dimensions, for example, gender, teaching experiences, educational and linguistic background, and so on.

The types/functions of chalk talk:

I think they are important to mention, help us to identify or reflect on the text, symbolism, graphs and diagrams we write on the board.

  • verbalize everything they write on the board (running commentary)
  • talk about what they write on the board (metacommentary)
  • move in space and use pointing gestures to indicate relationships, signal references, highlight key issues, and so on
  • refer to problem sets and textbook chapters
  • refer to their notes (often handwritten)
  • discursively signal shifts in the action
  • use rhetorical questions to signal transitions, pause the action for reflection, or check student understanding
  • turn to students and ask questions
  • talk to and/or with students. 

My Stops:

1. About the "Chalk Talk"
I have my first introduction to "Chalk Talk" through this article. As the authors said "as practitioners, our participants had no need to name the genre, but they were well aware of the centrality of talking while writing in chalk on the board in teaching mathematics." (p. 14) Even though I don't have "chalk talk" in my mathematical register, I am aware of how important the act of writing on the board is as a means of introducing students to disciplinary thinking, practices, and procedures of "doing mathematics. I try to find the closest description to "chalk talk" in Chinese, what comes to my mind is "板书" means "board & writing" if translate it to English. The difference between "chalk talk" and "板书" is the former stresses the interactions between the texts on the board and teachers. 
    I like the word how Artemeva and Fox named the chalkboard management - choreography. "Choreography" seems a fancy word to me, carrying aesthetics and thinking. As a teacher, a lot of thinking goes into writing on the chalkboard, thinking of what to write, where to write, what to keep... It's definitely a process of choreography.
      2. Novice v.s Experienced teachers
        I had the same feelings as the postdoctoral fellows (novice) mentioned in the article in the first year of teaching. I neglected the importance of chalkboards and did not think about managing the chalkboard prior to coming to class. In my last two weeks' blog, I have mentioned that I invited experienced teachers to come to my class for some advice. They suggested I recall my previous mathematics classes, how did my math teacher give lectures. I realized that every math teacher relied on the chalkboard and much more cared about the management of the board writing. Writing, talking involve thinking, that's what made mathematics class.

        My Question:

        Have you ever considered what role the chalk talk plays in your mathematics class? What dimensions do you take into account to design your chalk talk?

        4 条评论:

        1. Yes, I have considered the role of chalk talk in my class, although maybe not by name. I often use drawings and gestures to supplement what I am describing to the class across all subjects. I find I draw more visuals or pictures when I am answering student questions in lessons than if I just describe a concept. We also recently had projectors installed to display on our whiteboards and that has changed how I write on the board for lessons. Before I would have to copy all the materials, but now I can project onto the board and then only show the new part or draw beside the questions and the explanations are more visible to students in a colour.

          The other part about chalk talk that is interesting is all teachers go through similar motions in this genre, but I believe that each teacher’s way of describing, gesturing, drawing, and choreography will be slightly different and tailored to them and their own understanding. It also is in the moment. I’m sure teachers could walk into my room after a lesson and see some of my drawings and not initially understand what had been discussed if only parts of the drawings are there or observe arrows pointing to something and not have the context about what was being described.

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          1. Hi Kate, I totally agree with your point that each teacher has her/his way to construct chalk talk. So what surprises me is that students have a very strong capacity for adaptation, they are able to understand different styles of describing, gesturing, drawing from different teachers (because in Chinese elementary schools, different subjects are delivered by different teachers).

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        2. I surely thought of the role of chalk talk before. I have already discussed that the teacher-student ratio in Bangladesh is not standard. One teacher has to teach 70-100 students at the same time in a classroom. It is almost impossible to provide individual attention or one-to-one interaction. In a class like this, the board plays a vital role in teaching-learning. Teachers can communicate with all students at the same time by using boards.
          Now as I think about it, the board has an important role in geometric lessons. Teachers can draw different geometric shapes on the board and discuss different aspects of them. I always prepared myself before any geometry class. I planned what I would draw and what I would discuss about the drawing. But in arithmetic or algebra classes, I did not plan that much about the use of boards. I went with the flow and wrote whatever seemed necessary, but I had some selected problems in mind which I would solve and write down on the board for students to understand the application of a certain concept. Board is not only used for in-person classes, but also in online classes. COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to shift to an online approach. Teachers use boards in Zoom and Google meet during online classes.
          Drawing or writing something on the board does not make much meaning unless you are solving a mathematics problem and just write it down. When a teacher is using a board to explain a concept teachers' voices add meaning to whatever is written on the board. Without the voice, using a board does not make much sense. It needs to be a simultaneous process, writing something and explaining at the same time to use the full potential of boards in classrooms.

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        3. A very interesting discussion, both about the contingencies and methods of 'chalk talk' (and its many varieties), but also about chalk talk as a genre of math pedagogy. We'll be talking more about this second part in class today.

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