CHAPTER 2: When is a Mathematical Task a Good Task?

A mathematical task is defined “as a classroom activity, the purpose of which is to focus students’ attention on a particular mathematical idea” (Stein, Grover, & Henningsen, 1996, p. 460). A task can take on different forms and be designed with a wide variety of goals in mind. It can vary from being one problem to consisting of several connected problems, from focusing on learning the steps of a particular algorithm to making sense of a mathematical concept. Since the choice of mathematical task largely determines the opportunities students have to learn mathematics (Stein, Smith, Henningsen, & Silver, 2009), the importance of selecting, designing, and enacting high quality mathematical tasks has never been clearer. Nevertheless, there is much to learn about their design and use. As noted by Watson and her colleagues (2013),