Teaching Math

We math teachers tend to ask a lot of questions as we work with students. These questions have various purposes, including building relationships, establishing and strengthening norms, communicating processes, and managing student activities. Many, of course, focus on mathematics content. Here we explore teacher questions that support student higher order thinking about mathematics content. These questions are designed to develop facility with those mathematical practices necessary for complex problem-solving, including connecting concepts and approaches, extending students’ thinking by making and testing conjectures, making generalizations, being creative, and applying critical thinking.
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Years ago, I served as a math specialist at a small progressive pre-K–8 school. The classes were generally small, and during one year in particular, the fifth grade population happened to be predominantly male and included a few precocious boys who tended to dominate math class. The parents of the girls in this grade banded together and asked that the girls be taught math separately to make sure their developing mathematicians’ minds weren’t squashed by the vocal majority. So I was called in to teach this experimental class.
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