Math Icons: Inquiry and Application

As your students become familiar with the math icons from the previous article, consider bringing in two icons that will allow for an expanded understanding of math concepts: inquiry and application.

Inquiry

The inquiry icon encourages students to recognize ambiguous situations, incomplete details, or simply confusing questions in math. To teach my students about inquiry, I ask questions that students do not have enough information to solve. They are required to carefully look at their existing information and then determine the right questions to receive the information they need. I ask my students to record their inquiry questions using the icon on their paper. The inquiry icon allows students to become comfortable with uncertainty in math. They learn that asking the right questions leads them to the correct answers. Being able to confront uncertainty with confidence will help prepare students for the next icon…

Application

The applications icon answers the inevitable “when will we use this in real life” question. I use the application icon to introduce word problems but also ask students to create applications for new math concepts we learn in class.

After solving a one step algebra problem (such as 3x = 12), I ask my class to create an application for this problem. Initially, this stumps them and I create a sample application (for example: “My 12 foot house is three times as tall as my baby brother. How tall is my brother?”). Using the application icon develops the correlation between abstract computation and math reasoning.

Continuing…

These two icons build on the tools we introduced last time, but there are still five more math icons to help your students develop a deeper understanding of math. We’ll explore these in upcoming articles.