By Kasi Allen, posted March 28, 2016 —

Creativity requires risk taking—whether it’s having the courage to try new technology or posing a problem with multiple solutions or using mathematics to explore a social justice issue. We know that students benefit from strong daily classroom routines. However, too much of a good thing can lead to monotony. And when students can predict exactly how each math lesson will unfold, boredom and frustration follow, leading to negative emotions and limiting access to working memory—not exactly a recipe for mathematical success.

Decades of research have documented a common structure in the majority of secondary school math lessons. It goes something like this:

• Warm-up or introduction
• Homework check
• Presentation of new concept or skill
• Practice of new concept or skill
• New homework assignment
  

Do you recognize the pattern? I am sure all of us do. However, if we want to keep our students engaged in the work of learning math, this lesson template needs to be one of many rather than the only one. And in all our lessons, we must integrate formative assessment strategies that center instruction on having students grapple with articulating mathematical ideas rather than reproducing procedures to quickly arrive at “right” answers.

When we give students the opportunity to have their own mathematical ideas, they see themselves and the subject differently. The more students experience math as something they can do rather than something being done to them, the more our classrooms change as well. They become supportive learning communities, places where kids feel safe working together, wondering, speculating, and asking their own questions:

• Will this strategy always work?
• Can we prove that one neighborhood has more green space than another?
• What kind of math was discovered in South America?
• How many triangles are there on a geoboard?
  

When I talk to colleagues about taking risks in their math classrooms, many tell me that they just don’t have time. In an era of Common Core Standards and high-stakes testing, they feel pushed to the limit. I always respond by saying that this is a matter not of what we teach but how we teach. If we want our lessons to embody the Standards for Mathematical Practice, then we do not have time to be the only source of mathematical knowledge in the room. Nor do we have time for the uphill battle that ensues if our students disengage, shut down, and decide that mathematics is not for them.

When we take risks as math teachers, we communicate to our students that their learning is important to us. We don’t want math to be a class that they merely tolerate or barely survive; we want our lessons to be learning experiences that students look forward to and our classrooms to be places where they thrive. If we do not take the lead in taking mathematical risks, how can we expect students to do so, to confidently make mistakes or ask probing questions of their classmates? Day in and day out, we set the tone.

KASI ALLEN, kasi@lclark.edu, has worked in mathematics education for nearly thirty years as a teacher, researcher, and scholar. For the last decade, she has served as a professor of mathematics education in Oregon, teaching math content and methods to preservice K–12 teachers. Kasi loves helping people of all ages experience the power of having their own mathematical ideas. She is a math activist who studies math trauma and promotes teaching mathematics for social justice.