Edutopia – Holly Korbey
It’s the end of math class at Forest Hills Elementary School in Sidman, Pennsylvania, and after a short break, fourth-grade teacher Dawn McCall’s students are getting down to business—with an additional 20 minutes of math work.
McCall’s students know the routine: They pair off with a partner—usually a higher-performing student and a lower-performing one—and work through short sets of problems together that target weak or missing skills, like multidigit subtraction or multiplication. One student solves the problem while describing their thinking aloud; the other student offers support and highlights mistakes. Then they switch roles.