If helping students consider multiple solutions to math problems is so important, why do so few teachers do it?
This was the question asked by Ed Silver and his colleagues at the University of Michigan in “Moving from rhetoric to praxis: Issues faced by teachers in having students consider multiple solutions for problems in the mathematics classroom” (abstract only), published in the Journal of Mathematical Behavior. They worked with 12 experienced middle-grades math teachers for a year to identify some of the concerns and issues teachers had as they worked to become better at engaging students in discussions of multiple solutions. “It is nearly axiomatic among those interested in problem solving,” the authors write, “that students should have experiences in which they solve problems in more than one way.” Yet, as the teachers in this study revealed, it is hard to implement. It’s the kind of thing that math educators endorse with enthusiasm, but studies of the feasibility and benefits of this practice in classrooms are few.
What were teachers’ concerns? The majority worried about having enough time to devote to having students solve problems in more than one way and discuss the solutions. Many also were concerned that their lower-achieving students would be confused if they saw more than one way to solve a problem. One teacher confessed, “Sometimes I am scared to put even two strategies up there because [the students] are barely able to get one.” Other teachers believed that higher-achieving students would get bored if a lot of time was spent discussing a single problem. Teachers also had concerns about the limitations of their own knowledge.
As teachers grew to see the value of multiple solutions, they began to wonder about how to choose which solutions to have presented, the order in which they should be presented, and which ones to discuss in depth. One teacher noted that “Explaining is important, but which solutions you focus on have to be tied to the goals of the lesson instead of always sharing everything. I have not considered that before — who I want to share first.” Teachers were divided over whether to present incorrect approaches and how to deal with students’ mistakes. There is a lot of intellectual work involved in making decisions like these and no prescriptions exist. It’s easy to see how the exhortation alone to have students consider multiple strategies is insufficient support for successful implementation.
Beyond Show and Tell
As teachers grappled with these issues in the context of their own teaching, they began to think about how the purposeful selection of students’ solutions for presentation and discussion could help them “steer” the mathematics content.
Moreover, they noted, by attending carefully to the mathematical ideas embedded in students’ responses, a teacher could influence which ideas are likely to be discussed in class, and in what order, thereby improving their chances of meeting their mathematical goals for a lesson…. As one teacher stated, ‘I don’t usually allow multiple strategies, but I now see the possible benefits. [But if you do this], it is also very important to fully understand the mathematical goals of the lesson.’
Silver and his colleagues found that teachers’ instruction shifted over the course of the year to incorporate eliciting and discussing multiple solutions to problems. Teachers made the shift because, through their own discussions and reflections about promoting multiple solutions, they convinced themselves that it helped students’ learning.
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