How to Turn Your Math Classroom Into a ‘Thinking Classroom’

The researcher Peter Liljedahl evangelizes for practices that prioritize and stimulate more hard thinking in classrooms.

In traditional math classrooms—and in classrooms where challenging, unfamiliar work is often assigned, more generally—the progression “I do, we do, you do” often becomes the default approach to learning, according to researcher and professor of mathematics at Simon Fraser University, Peter Liljedahl.

It makes sense in many cases, particularly when difficult concepts need to be addressed in time windows that are compressed by bell schedules, holiday breaks, and summer vacation. But used too frequently, this approach, Liljedahl recently told the Cult of Pedagogy, inhibits higher order thinking and results in students who “mimic” teachers. Students who engage in too much rote work miss out on some of the challenging, sometimes confusing work that builds up their self esteem to face difficult thinking tasks in the future.

“By and large students spend most of their class time not thinking, at least not in ways we know they need to think in order to be successful in mathematics.” Liljedahl explains. “If they’re not thinking, they’re not learning.”

Read more here : https://www.edutopia.org/article/thinking-classroom-peter-liljedahl-math?fbclid=IwAR3iALyIIZ44k-PkbCXPfAqukZ85JImKoBO3MbEAq19nUNV0-vou1CNQ8KU