Abstract
For many teachers, the incorporation of problem solving into their practice is often met with difficulty as students who are not accustomed to this form of mathematics teaching struggle with, and resist, these efforts. In this chapter, I present results from two research projects in which I studied the effects of various teaching methods on students’ problem solving. In particular, I look at the affordances of a variety of work spaces on students’ engagement while problem solving. Results indicate that the use of vertical whiteboards is exceptionally conducive to engaging students and eases the introduction of problem solving. Results also indicate that teachers were willing to implement, and did implement, VNPS in their classroom even after only a single workshop.
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Notes
- 1.
Levelling (Schoenfeld, 1985) is a term given to the act of closing of, or interrupting, students’ work on tasks for the purposes of bringing the whole of the class up to a certain level of understanding of that task. It is most commonly seen when a teacher ends students work on a task by showing how to solve the task.
- 2.
- 3.
In Canada grade 12 students are typically 16–18 years of age, grade 11 students 15–18, and grade 10 students 14–17. The age variance is due to a combination of some students fast-tracking to be a year ahead of their peers and some students repeating or delaying their grade 11 mathematics course.
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Liljedahl, P. (2019). Conditions for Supporting Problem Solving: Vertical Non-permanent Surfaces. In: Liljedahl, P., Santos-Trigo, M. (eds) Mathematical Problem Solving. ICME-13 Monographs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10472-6_13
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