1. What is a "discussion-oriented" lesson?
Sometimes an idea that one cannot fully grasp on one's own becomes clear in the process of discussing it with a classmate or with the teacher.
In the process of carefully explaining one's ideas to a classmate, students may come to realize their own errors, thereby facilitating a greater understanding of the issue.
The act of discussing something is really the act of confirming one's own ideas, and is an effective means of improving student’s academic skills.
For elementary school children, the process of making new discoveries and recognizing rules as they share their ideas with their friends is also crucial in terms of helping them learn important lessons about how to relate to other people as they move out into society.
Thus, discussion-oriented lessons not only are focused on cultivating mathematics skills, but also have important goals in terms of cultivating the students' humanity.
When children try to explain something that they understand, it becomes necessary for them to use various expressive skills that mathematics attempts to cultivate. ·
These include explaining things using figures, rephrasing ideas in simpler terms, and explaining things using examples. .
It should be clear that the formal teaching of these methods does not nurture the ability to use them. It is precisely the student's desire to communicate something they know that cultivates the expressive methods that will be useful to them later