Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Creating a Problem Rich Focused Classroom for Mathematics
Teacher Interview: At an introductory level, allowing those students to struggle through
it whether it seems painful or not is actually an awesome experience. Because those students
were sitting there and they were thinking through the process and it was very difficult
for them. They have never seen these concepts before, there was no foundation there. However,
it was my responsibility to build a foundation. So I was trying to build a foundation. I am
not trying to build a building all in one day. I realize that you need to go back, but
you have to allow the students to struggle through it so that once the foundation is
built it is solid. Student 1: Oh Yeah, because here is the two
and two is four and six. Student 2: It’s kind of hard to get the
number by adding two Student 1: Two makes it fourteen. Oh no never
mind Teacher: That didn’t work right. That conjecture
didn’t work so you will need to come up with something else.
Teacher: If I just tell you how to do it what are you really gaining from it? You are learning
an algorithm, but you are not understanding why. You are learning a procedure, but you
are not understanding why you are doing it. So I think by allowing those students to work
through it they get the conceptual knowledge, not just the procedural knowledge, because
mathematics has gotten to point now that we need to be learning the concept. Like why
are we doing what we are doing? How does this relate to what I am going to do next, not
just learning a procedure? By me just feeding them a procedure they are not going to get
the conceptual knowledge behind it which I feel is going to be the foundation that they
need to build on for this point on.