Modifying Your Thinking Classroom for Different Settings

A Supplement to Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics

Keep thinking…keep learning in different settings

In Peter Liljedahl’s bestselling Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics: 14 Teaching Practices for Enhancing Learning, readers discovered that thinking is a precursor to learning. Translating 15 years of research, the anchor book introduced 14 practices that have the most potential to increase student thinking in the classroom and can work for any teacher in any setting. 

But how do these practices work in a classroom with social distancing or in settings that are not always face-to-face? This follow-up supplement will answer those questions, and more. It walks teachers through how to adapt the 14 practices for 12 distinct settings, some of which came about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This guide:

• Provides the what, why, and how to adapt each practice in face-to-face settings that require social distancing, fixed seating, or small class sizes; synchronous and asynchronous virtual settings; synchronous and asynchronous hybrid settings; independent learning; and homeschooling.
• Includes guidance on using thinking classroom practices to support students in unfinished learning in small groups and one-on-one teaching or tutoring.
• Offers updated toolkits and a recommended order for the implementation of the practices for each of the settings.

This supplement allows teachers to dip in as needed and continually modify the practices as their own classroom situations change and evolve, always keeping the thinking at the forefront of their mathematics teaching and learning.