You decide what's money!
As a society, we decided long ago that certain pieces of paper had value, that they’re money. You are the central bank of your own classroom, in much the same way. You can decide which kinds of student ideas are valuable. You can decide which of them are money. You can influence whether students will see their own ideas as valuable or not.
If we tell students, “I’m really interested in what you’re thinking about. Don’t just tell me what you think I want to hear,” they’re going to want to know if we’re sincere.
They may then offer an idea that’s personal to them—an image, metaphor, or expression from home—and they’ll be very curious how we’ll react. As teachers, we have lots of options here. We can ignore the idea or send other signals that their idea doesn't meet expectations. We can also praise the idea, letting our student know that we see its value, and, by extension, theirs.
That’s a lot of power, power that our team is still learning to wield as well! We hope that all of us use it to enrich as many students as possible.
What does it look like in Snapshots?
In the warm-up, we ask students for a story about a car on a journey. This is a moment where you can decide what’s money. Will you celebrate only the responses that hint at mathematical concepts like rate? Or will you celebrate responses that don’t jump straight to mathematical concepts but show that students think a bit more about the context itself? The mattress on the road. The animals on the roadside.
The responses you celebrate will become money to your students, and you’ll get more of that kind of response in the future. To invite as much student thinking as possible, I encourage you to let students know that their thinking is valuable in all of its forms, not just the formal mathematical ones.
Have a great lesson!
Dan & the Desmos Classroom Team
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