What a Grade 6 Taught Me About Risk-Taking in Math
A Grade 6 student and I were working on a geometry activity. Part of the activity was to draw a triangle that has a side being 5 cm long.
I said to her, “let’s find our rulers”.
She paused and with a smile, she said, “I think I’ll just risk it!”
And she carefully estimated the length of the line, drew a dot at one end, and then drew a line segment.
We measured the line afterwards and we both felt very rewarded that the line segment drawn was pretty close to 5 cm. We then talked about why she decided to “take a risk”.
She first joked that she was too lazy to look for her ruler, but ultimately, she expressed that it was okay to take a guess, make a mistake, and try again.
And what she said reminded me about the critical role “risk-taking” plays in mathematics learning. Part of risk-taking in mathematics is asking critical questions, using number sense to make estimations or form hypotheses, making logical arguments, and responding to others’ critique of their arguments.
According to an article published in the Mathematics Enthusiast in 2015, students’ attitudes towards risk taking and risk taking behavior can impact on their mathematics learning and performance (Sharma, 2015).
Teachers and parents need to promote risk-taking behaviors in math learning
Instilling these ideas into math learning can help promote kids to take a leap:
1) Teach children to have a growth mindset
2) Scaffold children’s learning when giving a challenging task. Give them “stepping stones” that would guide them through solving a problem.
3) Explicitly communicate to children the idea that “it is okay to take a risk”.
4) Encourage children to make estimations prior to taking steps in finding the solution to a problem.
5) Ask open-ended questions. These are questions such as “what is a fraction that is greater than one-half and has 3 as a numerator?” They can have more than one answer. Open-ended questions tend to lead to some discomfort because there is no single correct answer. They are great in helping children realize that it’s okay to take a risk.
Last but not least, a cute quote I came across on risk-taking in math learning:
In math, we make mistakes, that is expected…
They will be inspected and respected
Written by Mandy Lam
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