TeachME Professional Development

1. Experts believe that students who develop proficiency in mathematical problem solving early are better prepared for advanced mathematics and other complex problem-solving tasks later in life.

2. Mathematical problem solving involves reasoning and analysis, __________________, and the development of innovative strategies.

3. The practice guide expert panel defined the characteristics of problem solving to include each of the following EXCEPT:

4. Problem solving includes more than working word problems and should include algebraic and visual-spatial problems.

5. When working with struggling math students, experts recommend that teachers teach one strategy that can be used to solve multiple problems, as this will be less likely to overwhelm the students.

6. Studies of problem-solving interventions in the past 20 years have consistently shown that teaching students to persist in solving challenging problems is important to math success.

7. Which of the following recommendations for math problem solving is supported by a strong level of research evidence?

8. The expert panel believes instruction in problem solving must be an integral part of each curricular unit, and that teachers should use a variety of problems intentionally while ensuring that students have the language and mathematical content.

9. Teachers must consider students' ____________________________ to determine which problems will be routine or non-routine for them.

10. If the goal is to help students understand the meaning of an operation or mathematical idea, teachers should choose non-routine problems for their students.

11. Cognitive demands are associated with solving non-routine problems, and generally much more time will be needed to interpret the problem and determine what information is relevant, as well as how it should be used.

12. Which of the following is NOT one of the recommendations for teachers in helping prepare lessons to ensure student understanding?

13. As teachers plan problem-solving instruction, they should remember that problems that align with the current unit often draw on skills taught in prior units or grade levels, and that they may need to clarify the language in the problem before expecting students to solve it.

14. To make time during instruction for problem solving, teachers should consider balancing the number of problems students are required to solve during seatwork activities with worked examples students can simply study.

15. During problem solving, monitoring and reflecting helps students think about what they are doing and why they are doing it, evaluate the steps they are taking to solve the problem, and connect new concepts to what they already know.

16. Studies that examined students' mathematics achievement in different content areas showed that:

17. Experts recommend that students be encouraged to explain and justify their response to each mathematical prompt orally, and preferably in a group setting rather than individually.

18. As students become more comfortable with their reasoning abilities and take greater responsibility for monitoring and reflecting during problem solving, teachers can gradually withdraw the amount of support they provide.

19. When responding to prompts, steps include identifying the givens and goals of the problem and the problem type, recalling similar problems to help solve the current problem, __________________________________, solving the problem, and checking the problem.

20. By building on students' ideas, teachers can help students clarify and refine the way they solve a problem, which may be particularly helpful for students who dislike working with teacher-provided prompts or who are having difficulty understanding these prompts.

21. Ideally, whenever students work on solving problems, they should be able to learn from unsuccessful explorations and conjectures by reflecting on why they were unsuccessful.

22. A major task for any student engaged in problem solving is to translate the quantitative information in a problem into a ______________ necessary for solving the problem.

23. Schematic diagrams are visual representations that use rectangles to represent quantities presented in the problem.

24. Studies indicate that both general education students and students with learning disabilities performed better when taught to use visual representations.

25. While percent bars are appropriate for percent problems, strip diagrams are best suited for ratio and proportion problems.

26. Thinking aloud involves having the teacher tell students what he or she is doing and expressing thoughts while explaining what decisions he or she is making and why those decisions are being made.

27. Teachers may promote discussions by asking students guiding questions as they practice representing problems visually, such as each of the following EXCEPT:

28. If a student is not capturing the relevant details in a problem, teachers can help them improve their representations by building upon their thinking and by asking questions that will help students clarify and refine their representations.

29. The estimated effects of teaching multiple strategies on students' ability to solve problems correctly is known as operational knowledge, while awareness of mathematical concepts is known as theoretical knowledge.

30. When teaching multiple strategies, it is beneficial to periodically employ unsuccessful strategies and demonstrate changing to an alternate strategy to show students that problems are not always solved easily the first time.

31. Teachers can use worked examples to facilitate comparison of strategies with interesting contrasts and not just minor differences, with the added benefit of allowing for certain concepts to be highlighted.

32. When demonstrating the use of multiple strategies, teachers should randomly call on students to share their strategies, rather than select students purposefully based on the strategies they have used to solve the problem.

33. In order to have enough time in their math class for students to present and discuss multiple strategies, teachers can:

34. For students who lack the prerequisite knowledge or do not remember certain skills, exposure to multiple strategies will likely help them because they will have a variety of options to use in solving the problem.

35. Mathematical concepts and notation provide students with familiar __________ for organizing information in a problem and helping students understand and think about the problem.

36. Students tend to enter school with ____________________ constructed ways of making sense of math, so teachers can turn problem-solving activities into learning opportunities by connecting students' intuitive understanding to formal mathematical concepts and notation.

37. Teachers may need to draw attention to mathematical ideas and concepts by directly instructing students in them before engaging the students in problem solving.

38. Students should be given the opportunity to explain the process used to solve a problem and to articulate mathematically valid explanations that provide justifications for their methods.

39. Which of the following is NOT one of the expert recommendations for helping students understand symbolic notation used in algebra?

40. To help students explain their thoughts in more detail, teachers can ask them specific questions about how a problem was solved and how they thought about the problem, as well as having them create a:

41. Teachers should encourage students to use logical variables that relate to the items in the problem rather than arbitrary ones, as this will help clarify the abstract role that variables play in representing quantities.

42. When teachers state a prompt in front of the class and describe how they used it to solve a problem, students see how prompts or items from a task list are used and how people think as they solve problems.

43. Teachers should _______________________ to connect the problem-solving activity to relevant mathematical concepts and notation.