Mimi, can you explain a bit more?  Maybe provide some examples for me?

I was thinking about word problems and background knowledge. If you have to learn that eggs come in a dozen, or what a carton is, you might be a bit behind in applying the ‘math.’ Another example is that referring to swings on a  playground would require some background knowledge. Does this make sense?

Okay, yup that makes total sense.  So the way I think about it is that word problems should be used in two ways: as mirrors and windows.  As a mirror, we are using contexts that our students encounter and know about…they see themselves and their lives in the word problem.  As a window, those contexts are things your students may NOT know about or have experience with however the word problem gives you the opportunity to explore and look at things your students don’t normally encounter.

We want to use a lot of the word problems as mirrors because it engages students more and allows them to focus on the math and not trying to figure out the context.  However, there might be times we do want to use Window-type word problems to have some ‘teachable’ moments.  Is it important that students know that a dozen of eggs is 12 eggs? Yes, because they will most likely encounter that in other areas of math and just life..they need to know a dozen refers to 12.  However, is it important that you spend time discussing swings on a playground…maybe not that one.  So be intentional about the context and if it’s a context that doesn’t seem to fit your needs, it’s totally fine to change it to something that does.  Rosalba talked about this in the Strategy Sessions, go to this first one and fast forward to around 1:23:00 https://pd.buildmathminds.com/courses/strategy-sessions/lessons/math-strategy-sessions-with-rosalba/topic/strategy-session-1-compensation/

>>>>>Christina