Carousel is a cooperative learning strategy that involves movement, discussion, and reflection. Students work in small groups and move from station to station, discussing each step of a problem or task as they go. Carousel incorporates kinesthetic learning into your teaching, and gives students a much needed break from sitting in their chairs. It is a great way to encourage group work, as students must discuss and reflect together to answer each question. Carousel also strengthens students’ executive functioning by requiring them to think in a step-by-step manner as they solve complex problems.

This routine is intended to support students in strengthening their ability to make arguments and to critique the reasoning of others (MP3). In this routine, students make sense of someone else’s line of mathematical reasoning, decide if they agree with that reasoning, and then draft an argument defending their decision. This includes situations where students are making sense of two students’ different ideas about a situation (Settle a Dispute). This routine is adapted from Fostering Math Practices.

To provide a structured and interactive opportunity for students to revise and refine both their ideas and their verbal and written output. This routine also provides a purpose for student conversation through the use of a discussion-worthy and iteration-worthy prompt. The main idea is to have students think and write individually about a question, use a structured pairing strategy to have multiple opportunities to refine and clarify their response through conversation, and then finally revise their original written response. They should also show evidence of refinement in precision, communication, expression, examples, and reasoning about mathematical concepts. .

To allow teachers to evaluate student misconceptions while also helping them overcome the fear of failure. By celebrating the strengths within "wrong answers" and working out the correct answer as a group, teachers can strategically target student understanding and build their confidence. The anonymity of the activity shelters students from public embarrassment and allows students to discover that their peers make the same mistakes.

This formative assessment strategy allows students to analyze teacher created problems and identify mistakes. As students identify mistakes they will work to correct any errors and reflect on what they learned from the mistakes. By celebrating the strengths within "wrong answers" and working out the correct answer, teachers can support students’ understanding of math concepts and build their confidence. The anonymity of the activity shelters students from public embarrassment and allows students to discover that everyone makes mistakes. Mistakes help us learn.

This protocol can be used to offer critique and feedback for revision of work. It is appropriate to use during a draft phase, so that students have the opportunity to revise based on the feedback they receive. This process will help students see what is working, and then consider questions and suggestions that will lead to revision and improvement. It is important that students understand that the focus should be on offering feedback that is beneficial to the author/creator.