Sequencing Samples of Student work
Many teachers I have worked with have found it useful to have students analyze and discuss samples of student work. This can be a powerful tool to help students discuss different strategies that their peers used, or clarify misconceptions they might have, or see how others use different representations for the same concept.
One method of doing this is to select a few samples that have different common misconceptions that the teacher noticed students struggling with during the lesson or unit. The teacher makes a copy of those samples for each small group in the class. It’s a good idea to put a strip of paper over the student names when making the copies. The student groups are given the copies and maybe even the rubric that was used for scoring them. The teacher gives a couple of questions to stimulate small group discussion that allow for students to compare and contrast the copies of student work. This also allows students to reflect on their own work even if their work was not one of the samples.
If a teacher uses a method where the samples are not given all at once in loose leaf style as described above, such as presented with a document camera to the whole class or collated and stapled in small packets for small groups then there is an inherent order implied in which to analyze them. I often used to think it was best to show levels of different misconceptions or mistakes and then show and exemplar piece of student work last. Sometimes it might be best to show the exemplar first and then different misconceptions. Sometimes it’s best not to show an exemplar at all and just show different misconceptions. Maybe students could be shown all of them at once or in quick succession and be asked which they would like to discuss first and why. There are many ways and rationales for the sequence in which samples of student work are analyzed by students. It is worth considering which way will best help students extend their thinking, clarify misconceptions, engage in meaningful discussion and learn the most.
A good resource to read more about this is the book, 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions, by Margaret S. Smith and Mary Kay Stein.