Hi everyone,

These are great questions so I shared them with my 7 - 12 math department.  We have been reading Jo Boaler's book as a department.  I thought it might be best to discuss one question at a time so I'm going to post what we talked about for the first question.  Lets see what others have to say.  Then after others join the conversation, lets start discussing the second question.  So here is what my department said,

On the traditional classroom,  

"The physical structure of the classroom does not determine “traditional” or not.  It is the type of engagement that the students display.  Traditional is more follow the procedure, memorize, and do as the teacher models."

This chapter looked at what you could see in a classroom.  Here are several questions to ponder as you read chapter 2.   Please comment on at least one of the statements

1.  When you hear that a teacher is traditional, how do you visualize the classroom?   On page 39, Jo Boaler states that "Certain teachers might be described as traditional because they lecture and they have students work individually, but they also ask students great questions, engage them in interesting mathematical inquiries, and give students opportunities to solve problems, not just rehearse stand methods."  Do you agree with Jo Boaler's view of traditional teaching and how would you encourage teachers to go beyond traditional or change the definition of traditional teaching?

2.  Page 41:  "Some students think their role in math classrooms is to memorize all the steps and methods."   How can we change our students view of their role in a math classroom?

3. Page 44 to 46.   Look at the problem about turkey slices.   How would you solve the problem?   How would you help your students on all levels to solve the problem successfully?

 4. page 52-53:   How would you re-write each of these problems to  encourage higher order learning while the struggling student can still be successfully.   Rewrite at least two problems.  Solve them.  Please submit and share the problems so each of the participants can solve your new problem.

5.  How do you see the use of technology to actually fix what is going wrong in Classrooms?   Please give some examples of what you think would be great ways of changing the classroom to encourage children not to be a passive learner.