Revitalizing Algebra: Unstructuring Tasks
We decided to make "un-structuring" an important theme. Most meetings we discussed readings and movies, which addressed various themes. But we thought it was not sufficient for teachers to read research studies about the disadvantages of too much structure. The assignments that called attention to the structure issue included their experiencing low-structure work on problems themselves and then team teaching those problems to other participants, having teachers redesign problems by removing structure from overly structured problems, having them respond to a provocative movie of a lesson study where teachers improved a task by un-structuring it, and having them observe their peers who were using low-structure tasks in their teaching.
