Figure 6.1 (p. 180) describes several types ways to promote transfer learning. What sort of mix of “hugging” and “bridging” opportunities do you give your students? Do you have a favorite task or routine that is effective for promoting transfer learning? How do you know it is effective?

How often do you have students using metacognitive strategies to assess their learning or facilitate their problem solving? What questions do you ask them to consider? How do you know those questions are effective at helping them to deepen their understanding of mathematical concepts?

Classroom discussion is shown to have an effect size of 0.82.  What strategies do you use to promote effective class discussions?

Use of metacognitive strategies have an effect size of 0.69.  How often do your students engage in metacognitive strategies?  Do they use any prompts or sentence frames like those on p.121?

How often do you use flexible grouping strategies in your classroom?  How often do you change groups?  How do you decide how to group students for the lesson?

How often do you incorporate pre-assessments as you begin a new unit?

Think about an important topic that you teach and the tasks you use to engage students with the topic. Place the tasks on the Difficulty/Complexity graph on p. 77. What do you notice?

Share a quote that is meaningful, engaging, or thought provoking to you. What are some changes you are making in your own math instruction?