My math questions were perpetually stuck at calculating. Everything looked like this:
622 + 77 = ___
The Problem?
My most brilliant mathematicians would get the right answer and then… they’d get another calculation problem. In fact, they’d get 10 or 15 or 20 versions of the same problem. All at the same low level of thinking. No follow up questions to push them higher on Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Sure, the worksheet might end with a word problem. But that word problem was just another calculation problem in disguise, right?
The Update
So here’s one way I’d transform 622 + 77 = ___ into something that involves a bit more thinking. We’ll remove some of the digits in the addends. And we’ll give the sum:
☐2☐
+ 7☐
------
699
Plus we add a constraint: we can only use each digit from 0 – 9 once per solution (Thanks to OpenMiddle for this idea.) So we’ve already used up 2, 7, and 6. (You can change this constraint however you’d like!)
And we’re not just looking for one solution. The question is: How many solutions we can find.
Further, I want to know how my mathematicians were thinking as they found those solutions. What patterns did they leverage? It wasn’t just endless guess-and-check, right? By asking about the patterns they spotted, we’re pushing up to Analyze – since they must have been comparing and categorizing.
So that’s one way we can move a mere calculation problem to a higher-level of thinking.
For Byrdseed.TV Members
- I have a whole category of problems like this for Byrdseed.TV members. And, yes, all of the answers are included!!
- This particular problem is available right here.