Sharing Time Sharing is an important and enjoyable time for most students. Individual students or groups can tell the whole class what question they are studying, what they have done so far to figure it out, and what they plan to do next. They might also ask for advice on how to go about the work. Again, feedback from the class is officially limited to what the presenter needs and requests. Important learning takes place when students share their work this way.
Students learn from each other's reports, and the reporters learn, too.
I have seen more than a few students work most of the way through a project incorrectly, only to realize their mistake when they prepare to tell their classmates what they have done. This can be done either through oral presentations in class or in writing, with posters to be hung in the halls, chapters in class magazines, or letters to outside agencies or individuals. A rich assortment of these outlets for sharing provides students with the many opportunities for the kind of discourse so highly recommended in the NCTM Standards. The key is designing mathematics classes which are about what the students think and know, which respect and use their real-world mathematical experiences and knowledge. Then mathematics learning takes place in a context of real mathematical work.