Here is a linchpin at work. Dan Meyer is a math teacher who realizes that his work is actually perceived as selling something people don’t want.
Sounds familiar? Here is what Dan bumps into with every class he starts off with (he calls it the 5 viruses that are built in)
1. Lack of initiative;
2. Lack of perseverance;
3. Lack of retention;
4. Aversion to word problems;
5. Eagerness for formula (the quick fix)
But since he knows that he will retire in world that his students will run he takes the initiative to do something about it: “We need PATIENT PROBLEM SOLVING instead of sitcom-size problems that wrap-up in 22 minutes, 3 commercial breaks and a laugh-track. And no problem worth solving is that simple.”
“The math serves the conversation. The conversation does’t serve the math!”
His advice:
1. Use multimedia
2. Encourage student intuition
3. Ask the shortest question you can
4. Let students build the problem
5. Be less helpful (because the textbook is helping you in all the wrong ways; it is buying you out of your obligations for patient problem solving.
I just wish that training managers in companies could watch this video (i mean: over and over and over and over again!)
