[Click here for the bigger version of the pic.]
What's missing from this chart? What do you do to keep kids working on a difficult problem?
Two caveats to my chart:
- I'm not saying that "promotes/eliminates struggle" are the only relevant factors when deciding how to intervene with a student. But one of the things I'm worrying about is how to make my kids more comfortable struggling with tricky problems. I'm interested in what I can say to a kid that will make him/her more likely to keep on trying something difficult.
- There are obviously things that need to happen beyond the student-teacher interactions in order to promote the kind of environment that I'm looking for. Some of the stress my students experience when they get frustrated is intrinsic to the math problem. But some of the stress is social, a result of kids feeling like they're dumb for having to work so hard. We need to do things in class that normalize struggle and effort. (I think public presentation of interesting dead-end approaches and whiteboarding might be part of the solution.) So good interactions in the heat of the moment is just one aspect of what has to go on.
- "I ask for wrong answers to start the thinking process." (Looking for Wrong Answers, Dave)
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