Effective and Collaborative Problem Solving

Host, Leanne McMahon catches up with highly experienced mathematics educator and founder of  Maths Teacher Circles in Australia, Michaela Epstein to discuss how Problem Solving in classrooms of all year levels can be effective and collaborative. We discuss how teachers can go about incorporating problem solving into their classroom practice and how to structure these activities. We also look at the false dichotomy between problem solving and explicit instruction and why each of these has its place in the contemporary Maths classroom.

Resources:

Michaela's website: https://www.michaelaepstein.com.au/ 

Other links discussed by Michaela:

• Maths Teacher Circles website: https://mathsteachercircles.org/amsi 
• We share problems on a regular basis that we believe you will love:
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/MathsCirclesOz
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MathsTeacherCircles/
• Samantha Hellessey’s Twitter https://twitter.com/s_hellessey?s=20&t=edSZrVJoQVJGk-troBLsHQ
• A presentation given by Norman Do at AMSI https://rhed.amsi.org.au/dr-norman-radio/

Some good sources of Problems:

• NZ Maths https://nzmaths.co.nz/problem-solving (Some great articles to read here too)
• NRich from the University of Cambridge. https://nrich.maths.org/ (Also terrific articles)
• Not free, but worth checking out is Problemo https://problemo.edu.au/
• Re Solve - Maths by inquiry https://resolve.edu.au/
• AMSI Calculate has some lessons written up for you https://calculate.org.au/

Contact us on [email protected] or Twittter @AMSIschools or Facebook MathsTalk by AMSI Schools