Juli Crawford Snapshots of Student Misunderstandings

Juli Crawford Literature Review

Title:  Snapshots of Student Misunderstandings

Author:  Marilyn Burns

Source:  http://www.mathsolutions.com/documents/0210_Ed_Leadership.pdf

Summary:

Marilyn Burns discusses the need for one-on-one interviews with students to find out what they really understand in math.  She points out that written work, even when correct responses are given, does not show possible holes in students’ understanding.  She also mentioned that we conduct one-on-one assessments in reading, but not in math.

            She shares four snapshots of interviews with students and what she learned from it.  She then talks about how the information gained in the interviews could help guide her instruction and help her to be a more effective teacher.

Analysis: 

While reading the article, I thought about the way her snapshots made me think about more effective ways to teach my own students.  I am sure many of my students have similar misconceptions as the students she interviewed.  While interviewing individual students to assess their math understanding sounds like a daunting task on top of what we already do, I cannot help but think that I could apply what I learn from each interview to help the whole group.  It is something I would like to do more of and I can see how it would benefit my teaching and consequently my students’ learning.