How to Trick Students...

That's the first part of my presentation topic last week at CMC South 2023 in Palm Springs. The whole title reads "Tricking Students into Thinking Deeper". If you are a student, then you probably thought that for some reason teachers like to show an easy problem in class, then ask a harder one on a homework, and give an impossible one on the test. Right?

If you are a teacher, then you probably know the feeling of giving students a deeper thinking problem only to see them pushing it away and saying "I don't know how to do it".

My solution? Play a game with students. Everyone likes games. So we play in math class. This presentation was about Scavenger Hunt, where students had to solve a problem in order to get to the next clue, and of course, among those problems there were a couple of challenging ones. You know, when students have to think deeper, think outside the box.

I was very excited to share this with teachers, and I was even more excited that there were about 25 teachers who came to my presentation. This number might seem low, but you have to keep in mind that at the same exact time as I was presenting, there were not one, but two presentations from famous math teachers happening. Imagine, you are singing at a concert, but Taylor Swift is singing at the next stage and Imagine Dragons are singing at another stage. Something like that.

Of course, there were a couple of things that didn't go as well as I thought they would, but it is always a learning experience. Always. And I must say, I liked presenting so much that I am thinking about the next year presentation already.

Should I talk about an Escape Room I made?..