Scaffolding Mathematical Problem Solving was authored by a group from Oviedo, Spain. The authors are: Luis J Rodríguez Muñiz, Laura Muñiz Rodríguez, Cristina Álvarez Llano, María del Pilar Quidiello Villa, María Luisa Castro López, Pablo Blas Prieto, Juan Antonio Trevejo Alonso, and María Madrid-Salvador Olmedo.
The case study examines a lesson from Mexico City, Mexico and focuses on:
- Designing contextualised problems that can help students understand the mathematisation of the environment.
- Guiding students through mathematical problem solving in a manner that supports learning.
- Solving mathematical problems on quadratic equations applying the general quadratic equation formula.
The video is made up of four different parts:
- Part 1: The problem is set up for the lesson with the teacher scaffolding. (00:00 - 04:05)
- Part 2: Students start to strategise how to solve the problem. (04:05 - 07:56)
- Part 3: The teacher monitors student progress and then the teacher and students solve together the quadratic equation applying the general quadratic equation formula. (07:56 - 17:06)
- Part 4: The teacher asks how to check whether the roots of the quadratic equation makes sense and monitors their progress. (17:06 - 21:48)
The full case study is available in the attachments section. The comments on the video have been added by the OECD on behalf of the authors. The blue comments relate to the mathematics, the yellow comments to the teaching moves, and the brown comments are questions to consider. We invite you and your peers to add your own thoughts and comments on the video at different timestamps, or build on the ideas that are already there, in order to help foster a global exchange on mathematics teaching.
