Check these out:
Schwartz writes, 2. Don’t tell students what they should know; create the structure for them to experience it on their own. She offers 10 tips for launching an inquiry-based classroom. Her writing is not directed specifically to math teachers but it is easily applied! See her article here!
Then, What do courage, curiosity, and a sense of play have to do with teaching math and inquiry?
Last ... there are websites to help prime your thinking for developing launch tasks to get students thinking about math. One such website is Inquiry Maths. Here is one example of a structured inquiry task from the site:
How do you structure your math class to develop curiosity and promote student questioning?
It's hard to get right, but it's clear that real engagement--and learning that sticks--is all about building structure for inquiry-driven insights. The standards for relevant content (sports, cell phones, etc.) may grab a handful of students, but it will never engage them all in the way this will. Thanks for sharing a framework for making it easier!
ReplyDeleteSteve - you are welcome! I agree - that relevant content is helpful but not necessarily the key to learning math. Instead we have to get students to delve deeply into the topic ... peaking their interest, encouraging their perseverance, setting up enough structure to guide them into inquiry.
DeleteAre you blogging? I'd love to follow you ...