When a ninth-grade teacher used discourse moves aligned with responding to students’ thinking and explicitly promoting productive dispositions, her students reported having positive experiences.
When Katrina Lindo taught Integrated Mathematics 1 to ninth- and tenth-grade students, she encountered some students who appeared initially resistant to doing mathematics. Lindo wanted her students to see themselves as capable of making sense of mathematics:
At the high school level, I think that a lot of students already have a view of themselves as who they are as a student or as a mathematician. With the idea that we’re all mathematicians,
it’s really just about changing their perspective.Because once you believe “Hey, I am a mathematician, and all I have to do is try and figure it out . . .” then you get more students that are willing to engage.

Reprinted with permission from Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12, copyright 2020, by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. All rights reserved.
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