Stephen Markey

TED 539 – Mathematics Methods

Dr. McNamara
Reading Response #2
June 21, 2021

Upside-Down Teaching

I appreciate that teachers need to “prepare students to thrive in their future, rather than
our past.” Today’s jobs require workers with different skills than those needed before. It doesn’t
matter if you have a blue-collar or white-collar job and a job at any level, “Preparing for this
kind of future demands a different kind of education, especially in mathematics, than most
schools have offered in the past “. Today’s workers need to be able to be able to think
independently and become problem solvers. Skills like “…reasoning, thinking, creativity, and
high-level problem solving…” need to be developed across all curricula, with math playing a
particularly relevant role. Interestingly, “…the Common Core Standards for Mathematical
Practice…put a strong emphasis on reasoning, thinking, problem solving, and communication.”
Acquiring knowledge alone won’t do it, and traditional teaching methods need to evolve with the
new work paradigm

I learned that teachers need to evolve the view of teaching mathematics from the teacher
centered approach – which is the way I learned as a kid - to a teacher structured approach.
Sometimes called a problem centered You  We  I approach, this is focused on student
engagement, rather than a teacher-centered approach with students playing a more passive role,
and an approach that is much more than just about acquiring rote knowledge. This different view
of the classroom allows the students to think about the problem first rather than listen passively
to the teacher explain the solution to them. This enables students to be more active and engaged
in their own thinking and learning about a new topic. “If we are successful, students not only
learn the content they need, (but) they also develop mathematical habits of mind like
perseverance, thinking, reasoning, discussing, justifying their point of view, considering
variations of a problem, and developing a positive disposition toward mathematics.” Students
will learn the skills their future employers will be looking for when it comes time to enter the
workforce.

I wonder if I will have the patience and the time to build lessons around the new paradigm.
Developing a lesson plan that provides worthwhile tasks and productive discourse isn’t easy; not
just the additional effort but also evolving beyond the way I learned sounds hard. Will I be able
to ramp “up our academic expectations and incorporating significant attention to reasoning,
thinking, creativity, and high-level problem solving”? I love the idea of first presenting to
students a problem that they need to look into without first teaching them the rules and the
process to solve the problem – the article calls this model the “…You-We-I: You (students) will
mess around with a task for a while, ideally engaging in some thinking, trying things out, and
generally wrestling with or constructively struggling with mathematics arising from the problem;
then We (students and teacher) will discuss the different approaches students tried, with students
explaining, questioning, clarifying, and further grappling with the mathematics; finally, I (the
teacher) will connect this work and the class’s productive discourse around the problem and
related mathematical ideas, facilitating the whole process and ensuring that students come away
with the intended mathematics learning.” I understand the Upside-Down approach and welcome
the opportunity to work it. I still wonder if I will be able to do so!