Chapter 3 ~ Mathematical Tasks and Talk That Guide Learning

Here are the reflection and discussion questions for chapter 3. If you choose to comment on more than one, please use separate comments to keep the conversation organized. Comments for this chapter will be accepted until December 20th.

1. Make notes of the questions you typically ask in your math lessons. Think about them in terms of the focusing and funneling questions framework discussed in this chapter. Which way does your questioning sequence lean? How can you make focusing questions a stronger presence in your mathematics classroom?
2. Identify two or three mathematics tasks you’ve asked your students to work on recently. Think about each task in light of its difficulty and complexity (see Figure 3.1). In which quadrant does each task fit? Is each the right kind of task given your learning intentions?
3. Think about these same tasks in terms of the cognitive demand they make on students (see Figure 3.2). How could you revise or reframe the tasks to require a higher level of cognitive demand?