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

by Peter Liljedahl

This selecting and sequencing is both similar to and different from Smith and Stein’s (2011) notion of selecting and sequencing. They are similar in that they both try to achieve a sensible sequence that moves the learners through various ways of thinking about a task or tasks. The difference is that, whereas Smith and Stein do both the selecting and sequencing in the moment, within a thinking classroom, the sequencing has already been determined within the task creation phase—created to invoke and maintain flow. What is left to do is to select the student work that exemplifies the mathematics at the different stages of this sequence. Another difference is that, whereas Smith and Stein have students present their own work, in the thinking classroom the decoding of students’ work is left to the others in the room.