School of The Good Shepherd

Mathematics 

Melanie Sanderson (P-2) and Susan Mitchell (3-6)

Open-Ended Problems

 

Problem Solving is an essential skill needed for students to apply their mathematical skills to real-life situations. At School of the Good Shepherd we follow the RUCSAC process (Read, Understand, Choose, Solve, Answer, Check)

 

Open-Ended Problems are a wonderful opportunity for our students to get in the Learning Pit and work through problems that don’t have one answer. This is an opportunity for them to apply mathematical strategies and read carefully to ensure they know what they need to know to solve the problem.

 

Each open-ended problem is asked as a ‘Good Question’. So, what is a ‘Good Question”? Peter Sullivan defines a Good Question as having three main features. 

 

  1. They require more than remembering a fact or reproducing a skill.
  2. Students can learn by answering the questions, and the teacher learns about each student from the attempt.
  3. There may be several acceptable answers.

 

The Year 4’s have been experimenting with Good Questions on a Thursday. We begin with giving each group a big piece of butcher paper with the problem on it. They then work for 10 minutes without any intervention from staff (ensuring students are ‘in the Pit’) We then explore, highlighting some groups' work to show some possible strategies that could be used. We then continue to give them time to explore together to work on possible solutions, giving them time to summarise at the end. This process may happen several times over a session.

 

The question the Year 4’s looked at in the first week was…

 

A school has 400 pupils. They all come to school by bus, and each bus carries the same number of pupils. How many pupils might there be on each bus?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, this gave them the opportunity to explore and apply their knowledge of multiplication and division strategies to a real life situation. They are welcome to use any kind of manipulatives they want or need to solve the problem. 

 

We are ensuring our maths classrooms are dynamic places where students are involved and engaged in their own learning. These types of activities promote higher level thinking, co-operative effort, extension and clear communication.

 

Susan Mitchell and Mel Sanderson.