According to the Learning Principle of the
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, “Students must learn mathematics
with understanding, actively building new knowledge from experience and prior
knowledge.” There are many ways to
accomplish this, and it’s important that you, the teacher, develop a teaching
strategy that can accomplish this goal while using your own personal strengths.
To tap into students’ prior knowledge, I love
to begin a new topic with a discovery-based – or inquiry-based – activity. My discovery-based worksheets have been
specially designed to engage students in learning that moves beyond traditional
skills practice. Students develop a
deeper understanding of the big idea and make connections between
concepts.
The most important things to keep in mind
when designing your own inquiry lessons are to prepare a series of questions
to pose to students and to give them lots of time to complete the
tasks – typically in pairs or small groups.
These tasks should be selected such that they lead students to discover
patterns on their own without explicit notes.
Once students have had ample time to play with the material,
allow summary in the form of classroom discussion and brief, written notes.
I believe in a balanced approach to math
education. When I develop my unit plan, I try to incorporate one or two
discovery-based lessons to engage students in the content and facilitate
connection-building between concepts.
Then for each topic, I provide brief, organized notes so that students have
a resource to look back at for problem solving steps and specific
examples. Finally, I vary my practice
activities so that students are doing something new each day within the
particular unit. In my class we use
scavenger hunts, mini-white board practice, practice problems at the front
board, task cards, card games, card sorts, and sometimes just a worksheet will
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