Lesson 1.3 The Value of Challenges
Return To: Home Page, Module 1: Introduction As educators of our future leaders, pioneers, and intellects, it is important to challenge these young minds to think for themselves, solve problems creatively, and experience the pleasurable rush from successful thinking after multiple failed attempts. The trick here is how do we challenge our students while also avoiding the dreaded "I GIVE UP!" response when a student deems a problem too difficult?
1. Let's start this lesson by listening to a Ted Talk by Jo Boaler on how everyone can be a "math person"
2. Continue this lesson by reading the following blog from teacher Christina Winter. She does a great job at showing the importance of challenging your students, by providing videos of real teachers in action showing how they use challenging problems to encourage a growth mindset. She also provides various mathematical activities that you may be able to use in your own classroom.
3. Watch this Ted Talk Video & Follow the prompts of reflection: Ted Talk: 5 Principles of Extraordinary Math Teaching
4. Later in this course you will learn of what I call "Think Throughs"- which are complex math problems that are meant to challenge students and push them to try new methods, and fail multiple times before finding success. Many of these "Think Through" problems come from Jo Boaler's Summer of Math that she mentioned briefly in her Ted Talk video. If you are interested in these types of problems you can jump ahead to Lesson 2.2 Think Throughs now to see what challenging math problems I am using with my Algebra students
References
Talks, T. (2016, February 17). Five Principles of Extraordinary Math Teaching | Dan Finkel | TEDxRainier. Retrieved
Talks, T. (2016, May 22). How you can be good at math, and other surprising facts about learning | Jo Boaler | TEDxStanford. Retrieved
Winter, C. (2018, November 20). Ideas to Help Students Experience Challenges & Persevere. Retrieved from
Proceed to Next Module:
Module 2: Resources