Session 4 familiarized students with the tools available in the Solve Phase and how to make a recording.
The Session 5: Review Phase, Viewing and Annotating Thinklets objective is for students to understand the importance of checking their work and what appropriate, effective written feedback looks like. Students complete the Review Phase of a thinklet and view and annotate peers’ thinklets to demonstrate their understanding.
Begin the whole class mini-lesson by projecting the Review Phase checklists and posing the question, “Why is it important to review our work in these ways?” Guide students to understand that their thinklets will be viewable in the class Gallery, so that they can learn from each other by watching and discussing their work. Model a think aloud using an exemplar thinklet that makes sense, but does not include units. Watch the whole thinklet and explain how you check for the big picture and evaluate the recording using the second Review Checklist titled “Check Your Recording.” For a second time, watch the thinklet and identify which questions from the first checklist clearly have been answered. A third time, watch the thinklet and thinking aloud about what questions were not answered and how to revise the thinklet to answer those questions.
Lead into a class discussion on digital citizenship and what kind, specific and helpful feedback should look and sound like in the form of written annotations. If relevant, relate the annotations process to students’ experiences with social media. Have students share positive and negative experiences and how the experience made them feel. What kind of feedback would they like to see from their peers to promote a positive classroom culture and help them get better at math?
Categorize annotations as two types. Compliments or “Stars” are kind and specific. Improvements or “Steps” are kind, specific and help peers revise their work. Watch a thinklet from the Gallery together and model with a think-aloud the process of writing an annotation. Elicit other examples from students by providing sample sentence starters or prompts such as:
“You did a great job… because …”
“I like… because …”
“Next time, try to… because …”
Post these sentence starters or provide students with their own copies to reference during their independent work time.
During independent station rotations and Guided Math Groups, students focus on completing the Review Phase of their independent problem and then viewing and annotating 2-3 thinklets.
In the 5-minute closing of Math Workshop, have students share examples of how the Review checklists prompted them to revise their thinklet before submitting to the class gallery. Have students share some of the annotations they made, highlighting examples of kind, specific and helpful feedback.
Next: Session 6 details how to integrate CueThink into your independent station rotations and Guided Math groups for the rest of the year.