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Educators Peer Over Students’ Shoulders at Mich. Math Lab
Education Week-- By Sean Cavanagh---Hunched over tables, peering over one another’s shoulders, a group of 5th graders is attempting to conquer some of the most difficult—and essential—material in elementary school math.
On one side of their classroom, about 30 adults are sitting on risers, watching the students closely. They jot down notes. They listen to the students’ comments and questions, broadcast to them over a sound system. And when the students leave the room for a break, the adult observers move in to peruse the answers the children have scrawled in their notebooks.
This unconventional classroom arrangement is part of the Elementary Mathematics Laboratory, a forum held here over a two-week period this summer at the University of Michigan’s school of education. The lab, now in its second year on this campus, brings together teachers, college students preparing for the teaching field, and academic researchers from across the country to observe and discuss the challenges elementary educators face in trying to help students struggling in math.