Rich Tasks and Open Questions

Using “Rich Tasks” in teaching is a way to ensure that all students are able to start the process of math on whatever level they are comfortable with. A rich task is a question that is open in order to allow them to relate to it in their own capacities. 

They look similar to this:

McEachren, P.Problem 7.September, 2016

As we can see, this task has an open beginning, in that it does not require the students to use any one coin, and open-ended in that it never asks them for one correct answer. It allows students to work within their own understanding of money and monetary amounts. While one student may work with pennies, while other students may be working with toonies, loonies, quarters, dimes or nickels. Although all answers will be different, if the math is done correctly, they will all be accurate.

For a task to be considered a rich task, it has to:

-       Be accessible to all learners in the classroom: all learners should be able to start with something.

-       Be a real-life task: something that students are able to relate to, or is a situation that has actually happened, or they can imagine happening.

-       Be open to multiple approaches and representations: task should have multiple ways of solving, or many strategies that could be used.

-       Foster engagement, curiosity and creativity: engage students in discussion with each other about math, and ways in which they can complete the task. 

-       Be equitable: vocabulary and social justice issues should be treated with respect (i.e don’t assume that a family consists of a mother and a father etc.).

In class, we brainstormed several elements of a rich task, and I have since added some of my own:

Laman, A. What is Rich Task. September, 2016

A rich task has a strong focus on the student’s ability to learn through questioning and curiosity, rather than memorization or book knowledge. There is a huge emphasis on a student’s ability to answer the questions that relate to them personally.

Regardless of the answer, however, rich tasks are intended to promote discussion among students and with the teacher. The question provided may lead to discussions about what coins are acceptable or not, and how answers that are equally correct, may not be the same answer. I enjoy rich tasks for this reason. I like the idea of math being social, and explainable rather than individual and unattainable. I believe that students who engage in open-ended tasks will receive instruction that is more personalized, because they are guided into asking questions that are relevant to themselves and their own lives. 

"I pick 'A'": Parallel Tasks

Parallel tasks are an important tool that I am excited to put into action in my next teaching block. This week, we talked about it in relation to math, but it could be done in a variety of different ways, for a variety of different subjects. As a class, we were given two questions, and told to choose one and work through it. Both were similar, and dealt with the same mathematical concepts. I chose to answer this one:

Anna Laman. Parallel Tasks. September, 2016

I think it was important that we were not told that one was slightly more advanced than the other, and that they were given the same amount of validity when we discussed them. We were not separated based on which question we chose, or told that we should choose one question over another. Overall, it was a great example of an inclusive classroom strategy.

I believe that as much as I am itching to use this strategy in my next placement and hopefully my future classroom, it would be difficult to come up with engaging, interesting sets of parallel tasks. We discussed some strategies in class, some being to add the names of our students into the questions when possible, or to keep the wording similar in both questions, and only simplify the numbers to be more achievable for some students. This book is full of great examples to work from when the time comes that we have our own classrooms:

Anna Laman. A Book I'd Like. September, 2016

After developing a set of parallel tasks, teachers should come up with a set of scaffolding questions and questions common to both tasks, and all students to understand where their answers are coming from. In class, we practiced doing so:

Benji Schaefer. Parallel Tasks Chart. September, 2016

The common questions were written to apply to both of the parallel tasks, and could be asked to all of the students participating in either of the tasks available. They should include questions such as:

-       Did you find more than one answer?

•         Where did you begin?
•         What strategy did you use?
•         How does the answer change if {include a change to the questions listed}?
•         What formula could you use to help find the answer to the question?

It is important for the common questions to be universal, and to show that there are many ways of obtaining an answer. They have a focus on the process of mathematics, rather than the answer obtained through the process. In this way, students are encouraged to think more deeply about the question they are answering, rather than rushing to find an answer.

The scaffolding questions are designed for both questions as well, and are asked to help guide students through the process of finding the answer. They include questions such as:

• Would it be easier if there were {remove a section of the question that is making the student confused}?
• Can you use manipulatives to help you find the answer?
• How many times can you {make a direct link to the concepts of the question}?
• They are intended to point students in a direction that they should be going, or getting their process started rather than answering the questions that they have without giving them the opportunity of discovering the process.

As I said, I’m very excited to use parallel tasks in my own lesson plans, and to hear my own student’s reaction to them. I really liked how open ended the questions that we worked through as a class were, and believe that students will be able to benefit from the discussions that they provide.