Teaching primary mathematics with challenging tasks: How should lessons be structured?

ABSTRACT

Engaging students in a challenging (cognitively demanding) task and launching a mathematics lesson with a task before instruction are two characteristics of a reform-oriented approach to mathematics instruction often considered together. The authors systematically contrasted teaching with challenging tasks using a task-first lesson structure with that of a discussion-first lesson structure to three composite classes of first- and second-grade students (n = 73). Subsequent assessments of mathematical performance revealed that the discussion-first lesson structure was somewhat more efficacious in improving fluency performance but both structures similarly improved problem-solving performance. The findings suggest there is more than one way of incorporating challenging tasks into mathematics lessons to produce sizeable learning gains.

KEYWORDS:

• Challenging tasks
• cognitive-load theory
• discovery-based learning
• explicit instruction
• lesson structure
• mathematics instruction
• problem-based learning

Notes

1. Children's experiences of learning with challenging tasks were also investigated in terms of affective outcomes (e.g., motivation, persistence, enjoyment), along with their preference for how lessons were structured (see Russo & Hopkins, 2017c).