Questions questions questions...

The greatest change in my teaching happened when I started asking questions like:

"What are my students going to do in class today?" rather than "What am I going to do today?

or "What is the best use of class time?"

Questions are the genesis of great learning - getting students engaged enough to start asking questions is the key! This is one BIG reason why I love 3 Act Maths tasks. Dan Meyer explains in this post the idea - the key element I love is that students need to come up with their own questions. This is far removed from textbook maths - where all the information, with the model equation, is done for you and you then APPLY the model. All the best parts are done! All the fun is gone!! The thing that real mathematicians actually do is already done and what is left in our Maths classrooms are the carcass that for good reason most students do not find appetizing!

Here is another post on why these tasks are so effective.

• Act One:

• The hook that introduces the storyline, often leaving you curious with questions you are interested in answering and rising tension.

• Act Two:

• Tension continues to rise to its highest point as more clues are revealed to help lead you to the climax of the story.

• Act Three:

• Curiosity is satisfied with answers to your questions and tension is restored to its original state prior to the first act.

Dan's tasks start with a picture or video prompt that demands a question from the students.

The obvious question here is "how long will the tank take to fill up?". There may be other worthwhile questions also - I don't discount any that have any mathematical worth. The thing here is students actually WANT to know the answer. In fact, they NEED to know!

Next, students need to find what information they need to solve the problem. Now this is not like any textbook I have seen or written! There is no answer in the back of the book here folks! After getting all the info they need (they have to ask for it - so here the height of the tank, the flow rate of the hose etc) they can answer the question.

Answers are not always exact, discrepancies lead to conversations about sources of error. That is important and again NOT like a textbook. At all.

Check out the whole task here.

For more tasks click here or here

There is some great stuff here to challenge both your students and your teaching.