Overview

This part focuses on students’ reasoning and how they use words, drawings, or other tools to support their reasoning and explaining. This part also provides another opportunity to identify ways in which teachers work to establish and maintain an environment that nurtures students’ reasoning.

Key Points

Teachers establish and maintain an environment for reasoning through their use of time, materials, classroom space, social structures, tasks, and expectations. Teachers establish and maintain an environment through moment-to-moment teaching moves, like giving directions and posing questions. Such moves encourage students to use and express their reasoning, as well as to attend in meaningful ways to the reasoning of others.