Work and Wrestle: Targeting Students with the Quantile Framework for Mathematics
Hat tip to Marshall Memo for pointing to the latest edition of Better for James Hiebert and Douglas Grouws’ article, ‘Which Instructional Methods Are Most Effective For Math?’ (subscription required). Hiebert and Grouws argue that when it comes to teaching math skills and concepts, there are a number of essential elements in ensuring students gain conceptual understanding of the skills and concepts being taught.
First, teachers should continually draw relationships between what is being taught and past material covered. Here’s the Marshall Memo summarizing what Hiebert and Grouws label the ‘Work and talk’ approach:
- Examining relationships among facts, procedures and ideas within a lesson and across lessons.
- Exploring reasons why procedures work as they do.
- Solving problems using different procedures and then looking at similarities and differences between them. (more…)
