◆ xiiiForeword
Problem Identified
In 2009, the Institute for Education Sciences published a practice guide
entitled, Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Response to Interven-
tion (RtI) for Elementary and Middle Schools. One of the recommendations
from the research was to provide instruction on solving word problems
based on common underlying structures. What was that? As a middle-school
teacher at that time, my problem was I didn’t know the common struc-
tures, much less how to teach them. Digging into the research provided
more insight that students could have positive results in solving word
problems given explicit problem-solving instruction (Jitendra et al. [1998];
Xin, Jitendra, and Deatline-Buchman [2005]; Darch, Carnine, and Gersten
[1984]). There was plenty of information on why a change was needed,
however, practical teaching strategies for implementing efficient problem
solving were still illusive.
Having taught math from the college level, then high school and down
to middle school, I have experienced the struggle students have with
solving word problems. Working with teachers at all levels as an admin-
istrator, I have also seen the struggles teachers have with teaching students
to think critically and solve problems. We know how to teach basic skills;
we’ve been doing it for decades! However, a change is needed to tap the
critical thinking skills of the next generation.
In World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students
(2012), Yong Zhao discusses the need for students to be resourceful, cre-
ative and independent to meet the challenges of the new workplace. He
states that “in a new economy we need a new type of talent,” because the
jobs of the future have not even been created. As teachers, we often tell
students what they should know and then help them to become proficient.
Our issue is that the new skill set is not a fact skill set but a creative skill
set. A paradigm shift is needed to help teachers develop the creative skills
of students. It makes sense that to foster the individual talents, we need
to allow students to explore those talents in meaningful ways and to do
so on a daily basis, not for just a project each grading period. Mathemati-
cal problem solving is a starting place to begin equipping students with
this critical thinking skill. Just as skills need to be retooled to access the
information age resources, so will a retooling of educators be necessary
for the next shift.