30: Teaching Students to Communicate

I encourage my students to communicate with me via email when they are struggling with homework before class for two main reasons:

1. If I get the email in enough time to respond, I can provide them some guidance that will hopefully help them be able to move along with the assignment.
2. If I don't get the email in enough time respond, I at least know ahead of time that they had trouble with the assignment and know to talk to them about it at the beginning of class.

My grade 6 students are just getting the hang of what I expect in terms of emailing me when they don't understand. They've got the "emailing" part down, now we've just got to work on being a little more descriptive in the email as to where they are stuck. With both emails I responded with very typical teacher questions (questions I also encourage parents to use if their child asks for help) such as:

"Can you be a little more specific in what you don't understand?" 

"How about we start with, what do you understand?" 

"What is the question asking you to find?"
"What information do you already know?"

"How are you thinking you might want to start the problem?"

"Is there a strategy that you might be able to use?"