Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12: 14 Teaching Practices for Enhancing Learning (Corwin Mathematics Series)

by Peter Liljedahl

Problem solving is a messy, non-linear, and idiosyncratic process. Students will get stuck. They will think. And they will get unstuck. And when they do, they will learn—they will learn about mathematics, they will learn about themselves, and they will learn how to think.

Problem solving is what we do when we don’t know what to do.

For students there is a big difference between having their question heard and not answered, and having their question not heard.