In our work, we asked what to do once instruction went online.  What we learned was that the dimensions of discourse we had used to talk about high-quality math talk in elementary classrooms continued to support high-quality teaching online.  And, the techniques we had been working on, were also useful in new learning environments.  What did you learn about math talk and discourse during the pandemic?  We would enjoy learning from you!

Thank you for sharing. I appreciate you pointing out the importance of utilizing multiple modes of communication in math teaching and learning. Can you talk a little about the modes of expression you utilize and the impact you have seen in teaching through multiple modes? I am currently doing research that seeks to understand creative embodied expression of math and science. Have you done any teaching activities that utilize embodied ways of thinking and knowing?

Awesome work.  I am also interested in utilizing multiple modes of communication and wonder how this looks online in particular.  For me, discourse does not always mean words.  Have you found any innovations to support the use of alternate forms of communication, such as gestures, online?

What pertinent and relevant work- thinking about how mathematics discourse may need to change given the new structures in place for student learning. The book sounds like it could be a really helpful resource! And, as a researcher, I loved the matrix displaying the discourse types across four dimensions (it could be a useful way to think about and categorize the nature of in classroom math talk when describing some of the things observed in classroom videos).

Fascinating work and discussion on mathematics discourse! I am interested in learning more about what was mentioned at the end of the video- "how high-quality discourse can be implemented in a variety of learning environments." Could you describe in what other learning environments you hope to implement your program? Also, did you engage caregivers in math talk during remote learning? Thank you for sharing!

I am so excited to see the continued great work that you all are doing on Project AIM!  Your book is on my summer reading list.  :-)  I'm wondering if/how your research methodologies have changed and adapted during the pandemic?  Are you all still capturing videos of classroom teaching, and were you able to do that in a virtual space?  Thanks for sharing!  

This is a very interesting project and a great video! It's so encouraging to see and hear how teachers have been able to adapt during the pandemic. I might have missed this in the video, but did you work with teachers to adapt their discourse practices to the virtual world or did they come up with those adaptations (e.g., relying on the whiteboard and using breakout rooms) on their own? Were there any practices that didn't translate well? Were there any that translated better than you expected? Thank you and great work!

Hi Michael, thanks for your comment.  COVID did shake our work because of our focus on classroom discourse; so we had to rethink what discourse means in online environments. We wrote a little blog about that (here), because we realized that our Discourse Matrix, with different types of discourse and dimensions to characterize the types, was still helpful to think about discourse in other environments. Our work with the teachers, however, in terms of data collection or the intervention itself had ended before the beginning of the last school year. Thus what we know about the teachers is based on our partner teachers sharing with us what they were doing.

Comments: This is really tremendous work! As mentioned in previous comments, the quality of and impact this work is having is encouraging. I look forward to future extensions and expansions of your program.

Questions: I'm curious about the ways that teachers adopted and adapted the lessons they learned and applied from your framework. Did you find meaningful unexpected or surprising ways that teachers were doing so? Given that elementary teachers sometimes teach multiple subjects, were you able to collect information on whether teachers were applying these approaches in other subject areas?

As a special education K-3 teacher as well as a copresenter, making meaning of math concepts is so important for K-3. The discourse matrix can be applied to any subject, including Social Emotional learning and ELD. Thank you!

What interesting work. Thank you! For the last year, a group at Horizon Research has been studying how the pandemic affected science instruction, especially early on. Teachers reported their students being less engaged in science instruction after school buildings closed, and they described how their teaching shifted to more transmission-oriented strategies. In your video, I was particularly struck by the teachers' accounts of how well the four dimensions translated to an online environment. It seems these teachers were particularly well equipped for the transition from in-person to remote by their work with Project AIM. How encouraging!

This is such exciting work! I am very interested in the Math Discourse Matrix from your video and book. The 4 dimensions of Questioning, Explaining, Listening & Modes of Communication are useful for me in my own work--which involves helping teachers to increase their responsiveness in mathematics instruction. I'm wondering what kinds of work you have found particularly helpful to do with teachers to get them to move away from correcting discourse and towards more responsive discourse? Any standout activities or series of activities?

Also--since you asked what we all had learned about math discourse during the pandemic...

I run PDs where teachers are engaged as learners in solving open-ended tasks, and I work with a team of teacher leaders who are learning to run these kind of PDs in their own schools. Our team has learned that in the virtual world it is easy (and highly effective) to take a screen shot of JUST A PORTION of a learner's work, display that for the whole group, and then get the group to discuss first what's going on in the work shown, and then work collaboratively to extend the thinking/reasoning through group conversation and facilitator annotating. Very powerful! 

Lindsay, I like what you shared and the new ways in which we can present student work for discussion in PD.  There are lots of new possibilities, right? I wonder why sharing just a portion of the work seems productive to teachers and also how do you go about choosing which portion to share? This is really interesting to think about.

Our PD is based on the idea that when teachers learn about the matrix, and then learn techniques that help them take the ideas to the classroom in a very organized fashion that they can teach students to participate, they try these techniques, which allows them to start noticing students' mathematics.  The techniques open the spaces for that and then we come back together to reflect on what they are learning, using the dimensions of the matrix as the framework for reflection.  This going back and forth between technique and theory has been helpful in our work with teachers and has supported teachers' a move away from correcting discourse.  We wrote about this in a paper we published last year, here is the reference: 

Sztajn, P., Heck, D. J., Malzahn, K. A., Dick, L. K. (2020). Decomposing practice in teacher professional development: Examining sequences of learning activities. Teaching and Teacher Education (91). doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2020.103039

Let me know what you think and thanks again for your comment.

So glad you were asking and answering these questions about hybrid math discourse. Something as simple as white boards could make a big difference. And I hadn't seem your dimensions before -- so I discovered a useful resource. Thanks for sharing!

What a great project! I really liked how you emphasized the different ways of communicating ideas. This is so important as not all students communicate their thinking in the same way. This flexibility can also give space to students who don't speak English as their first language and make them feel they are learning in a safe environment.