#3 Try students standing during explanations
Sounds a bit weird, but might be woth a go!
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I am currently reading Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics by Peter Liljedahl. It is a great book, and it is challenging many of my classroom practices. For example, the default in my classroom when I am giving explanations, modelling examples, or going through solutions is for my students to be sitting down. Of course they are! I have never considered they would do anything else. If pushed for a rationale, I would say that it gives my students the best chance to attend to what I am saying.
Liljedahl suggests I am wrong. Instead, Liljedahl argues we should ask our students to stand and cluster together around us when we explain things. With our students standing close by we give these explanations verbally, ask questions, and add key points, models and solutions on the board as we go. The rationale is that students are more engaged and alert when standing, and evidence is cited that when they return to their desks they are quicker to engage in thinking behaviour.
Most classrooms lack a large enough space at the front to house all the students, so Liljedahl suggests students cluster around a small space by the whiteboard, with some students standing behind two or three desks.
This is firmly outside of my comfort zone, but my initial explorations have been promising. The act of standing seems to jolt some students to life, it seems to be much harder to be passive when standing, and that extra alertness does seem to follow through into the worked example or task that follows the explanation.
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