Jennifer Bancej

In defense of "Building Thinking Classrooms" ... Many students are idle in school and do benefit from the "break" in monotony that is afforded via BTC. Standing, speaking, writing, collaborating and wrestling with ideas are all good practices (and should be encouraged), I think the issues with BTC (and any "stand alone" pedagogy) is working with tasks that are not mathematically relevant, interesting...or tasks that do not move kids into a place where they can engage in meaningful ways with rigorous, quality content. And, working with BTC exclusively seems a bit extreme (not everything needs to happen on a whiteboard). But, there is no doubt that BTC has helped many teachers authentically examine their own practices that may have kept students silent and seated and disengaged in math class. We all have a lot to learn. None of us know all the math or all the methods, but we should all be willing to reflect. Yes, we do need to know our content deeply and continue to grow in our understanding of mathematics, but understanding kids, pedagogy and different ways to bring students into the conversation is important and BTC (and others) offer insight that is needed in math education. #iteachmath