Shifting from teacher-centered questions to student thinking tasks:

Key principles embedded in these moves:

• Every student thinks, not just volunteers

• Questions become cognitive tasks with think time

• Students compare, evaluate, and generate rather than recall

• Peer-to-peer interaction replaces teacher-to-student

• Mistakes and confusion become learning opportunities, not things to fix immediately

• Students create examples rather than rely on teacher examples

• Mathematical reasoning is valued as much as, or more than, answer-getting

  
  

• Instead of "Who can tell me what the next step is?" → "Take 30 seconds: Write down what you think the next step should be and why."

• Instead of "Are there any questions?" → "On your whiteboard, create an example that shows you understand this concept."

• Instead of "What do you notice about this graph?" → "List three things you notice and two things you wonder about this graph. Be ready to explain your thinking."

• Instead of "What's the answer to number 5?" → "Compare your answer to number 5 with your partner. If you got different answers, figure out where your thinking diverged."

• Instead of "Who can explain how to solve this?" → "In your notebook: Sketch or write the steps you would take. Then find someone who approached it differently and learn their method."

• Instead of "Is this answer correct?" → "Decide whether this answer is reasonable. What evidence supports your decision? What would make you doubt it?"

• Instead of "Can someone share their strategy?" → "Trade papers with a partner. What strategy did they use? How is it similar to or different from yours?"

• Instead of "Who remembers the formula?" → "Without looking at your notes, write down what you remember about this concept. Then check with a partner to see what they remember."

• Instead of "Let me show you how to do this" → "Here are three different student solutions to this problem. Study them and determine: Which approach makes the most sense to you? Which is most efficient? Which would you use?"

• Instead of "Does this make sense?" → "Explain this concept to your partner as if they were absent yesterday. Use a diagram or example."

• Instead of "What's the rule?" → "Look at these five examples. What pattern do you see? Test your pattern with two more examples. Does it still hold?"

• Instead of "Is anyone stuck?" → "Draw a line where you got stuck on this problem. Write one specific question that would help you get unstuck."

• Instead of "Who got the right answer?" → "Three people in this class got three different answers: 12, -12, and 6. Work with your group to figure out which is correct and what mistakes might have led to the other answers."

• Instead of "Let me clarify that for you" → "Turn to someone near you and explain what you understand so far. Then identify together what's still unclear."

• Instead of "Can you prove that?" → "Create an argument that would convince a skeptical classmate. What evidence would you need? What counterexamples would you address?"

• Instead of "What questions do you have?" → "Write down one thing you're confident about and one thing you're still uncertain about. Find someone who's confident about your uncertainty."

• Instead of "Here's an example" → "Generate your own example of this concept. Make one that's simple, and one that's complex. Explain what makes them different."

• Instead of "Watch how I do this" → "Before we solve this together, predict: What will be the hardest step? Where might someone make a mistake? Why?"

• Instead of "Who can come up to the board?" → "Everyone solve this on your whiteboard. In 2 minutes we'll do a gallery walk to see all the different approaches."

• Instead of "Is this a good strategy?" → "Evaluate this strategy: What are its strengths? Its limitations? When would you use it? When wouldn't you?"