I’d love to think more with you about teacher moves that invite student thinking–moves that put students at ease and encourage them to bring their early knowledge and offer it for the class’s benefit.
Create a headache.
We often try to ask ourselves, “What is the need for this new idea? If this idea is aspirin, then what is the headache and how do we create it?”
What I love about Toothpicks and Tiles is that students can be successful with lots of different tools—including visual estimation and skip counting. But learning to reason abstractly—noticing that the toothpicks increase by 8 and figuring out how many 8s take the total to 100—can save us time and effort.
We encourage you to help students see the value in their early strategies, telling them that “estimation gets you close!” and that “skip counting offers certainty!”
Letting your students know you value their early ideas will make it more likely they’ll offer more of them in the future, which can only support your teaching!
Dan & the Desmos Classroom Team
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