Giving the answer first

During class, my instructor gave us a number and said, this is your answer now make questions. When she first said this, I panicked! How was I supposed to come up with a question, there are so many possibilities! My group and I started with simple addition and subtraction. Okay, that wasn't too bad, I cam up with 5 possible questions in the matter of a few minutes. Maybe I can do this! After that we started brainstorming. Could we make a question that had to do with area and perimeter? Yes! Could we make a question that had to do with calculating the days of the week? Yes! Before we knew it, we had several complex questions written down ad we were just getting started!

This activity made me realize the importance of giving students ownership over their work. As a 21st century learner, we are not evaluating students based on their ability to answer the question correctly, but rather helping to guide them towards problem solving in order to solve any question based on their learning style. By giving us the freedom to choose what I wanted the question to look like, I was able to work backwards in order to problem solve and gain confidence in my ability to complete a math task.

This is an activity I would love to do with my future students. I think it is a great way for students to focus on a growth mindset and get rid of the fear of being wrong. When they are in charge of developing the question, there can be no wrong solutions. This activity would be great to do in a class where differentiated instruction is needed. As a teacher, I could group students based on their level (not telling them this of course) and have students come up with questions based on their ability. Maybe one group would be focusing on multiplication, as that is where they struggle. Maybe another group would be focusing on surface area, as that is where they struggle. Either way, I am focusing my lesson based on my students needs and letting them take ownership of their work.

This type of activity is also great because it can be manipulated to fit under all the strands of the math curriculum. Depending on whether you have a primary, junior or intermediate class, you can use this activity to help students understand number sense and numeration, measurement, geometry and spatial sense, patterning and algebra or data management and probability. Not only does this activity develop a growth mindset for our students as well as ownership, it also helps develop creativity. By leaving the answer as broad as just a number, students can manipulate it in many ways and give it different representations such as the amount of apples in a basket, the amount of meters needed for a tile floor, or the distance between earth and their favourite star.