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

by Peter Liljedahl

When to Give the Task One of the earliest results from the research was that the same task given either in the middle of the lesson or near the end of the lesson produced much worse results than if it was given right at the beginning of the lesson. There are two main reasons for this—the first of which has to do with the students. As discussed in the previous chapter, students prefer to occupy lower energy states. So, if a lesson begins with the low-energy state of passively receiving knowledge in the form of a lecture or taking notes, it is much harder to then raise their energy level and get them to start thinking. This was obvious in the data through students’ complaints, questions, and slow starts whenever we gave them thinking tasks in the middle or near the end of the lesson. A class given these same tasks at the beginning of the lesson came to it with energy, enthusiasm, determination, and a greater sense of self-reliance. Even when we ran tasks on the same students at different points of the lesson, we saw a huge difference between a task given early versus late in a lesson. It wasn’t about the task, and it wasn’t about the students. It was the timing of the task that made a difference.