Instructional Delivery and Classroom Discourse
What this domain asks you to know
Delivery questions focus on how you orchestrate mathematical talk, press students to justify reasoning, and use questioning to move thinking forward without taking over.
Concepts to master
- Talk moves: revoicing, restating, reasoning, adding on, wait time, and turn-and-talk.
- Questioning levels: funneling (leading to a predetermined answer) versus focusing (probing the student's own reasoning).
- Selecting and sequencing: choosing specific student work to share in a deliberate order that builds toward the mathematical goal.
- Productive struggle: allowing confusion to persist long enough to be productive, while monitoring for unproductive frustration.
- Equity of voice: ensuring participation is broad, not dominated by the fastest responders.
Traps to watch for
Questions present a teacher response and ask which best advances discourse. Distractors are correct mathematics delivered too soon-they shut down student thinking. Another trap confuses praise ("great job") with accountable talk that requires justification. Also watch for responses that answer your own question.
Rule of thumb
When a student gives an answer, respond with a question that requires justification or connection: "How do you know?" "Does that always work?" "Can someone restate that in their own words?"
Worked example
Student: "The graph goes up, so the slope is positive." A funneling response is "Right, because it rises." A focusing response is "What would the graph look like if the slope were negative-and how does your 'goes up' idea connect to rise over run?" The second keeps the reasoning with the student.