How Can Teaching Support Learners to Build Norms, Position Learners as Active, and Change Thinking?

This chapter presents the reader with three tools to promote learner activity and change their thinking within supplemental math interventions through two powerful tools: Structuring Small Environments for Success by Co-constructing Social Norms and Selecting and Sequencing Tasks. We summarize the research on norms, relate norms to the structuring of intervention environments, suggest ways in which teachers can support learners to establish and participate in social norms, and offer four classifications of tasks – Accessing, Bridging, Challenging, and Varying – that can act as platforms upon which student thinking can advance. We illustrate the tools through a case of one learner’s thinking, provide practical implications for teacher practice in supplemental intervention settings, and make connections to the final teaching move of promoting noticing, reflection, and connections.