Cognitively Demanding Tasks: Supporting Students and Teachers during Engagement and Implementation

Christopher W Parrish,Kelly O Bryd

doi:10.29333/iejme/11475

Abstract

A clear relationship exists between the consistent selection and implementation of cognitively demanding tasks and students’ conceptual understanding of mathematics. However, mathematics teachers often struggle to maintain the cognitive demand of implemented tasks, with a number of factors identified as contributing to this decline. As many students have limited opportunity to engage with cognitively demanding tasks, the percentage of students proficient in mathematics remains low and unchanged. Given that the consistent opportunity to engage with cognitively demanding tasks is key to increasing the percentage of students proficient in mathematics, understanding the role of tasks in the mathematics classroom is of essence to both mathematics students and the field of mathematics education. As such, the purpose of this paper is to describe the role of cognitively demanding tasks in the mathematics classroom, the barriers to task implementation, and the supports for students and teachers related to either their engagement with or implementation of cognitively demanding tasks.

Highlights

The consistent implementation of cognitively demanding tasks has been shown to improve students’ conceptual understanding of mathematics (Boaler & Staples, 2008; Stein & Lane, 1996; Tarr et al, 2008)
A shift towards teaching with cognitively demanding tasks is of imminent need as only 33% of eighth graders in the United States are proficient in mathematics (NCES, 2019)
The percentage of teachers able to maintain the cognitive demand of a task during the launch varies between studies (Jackson et al, 2013; Stein et al, 1996), multiple studies have shown that an even lower percentage of teachers are able to maintain the cognitive demand of a task during implementation (Boston & Smith, 2009; Henningsen & Stein, 1997; Stein et al, 1996)

Summary

Introduction

The consistent implementation of cognitively demanding tasks has been shown to improve students’ conceptual understanding of mathematics (Boaler & Staples, 2008; Stein & Lane, 1996; Tarr et al, 2008). Teachers often struggle to implement these tasks in their classrooms (Boston & Smith, 2009; Jackson et al, 2013; Stein et al, 1996) and in contrast, their instruction includes few opportunities for students to think and reason about mathematics. As the consistent opportunity to engage with cognitively demanding tasks is seemingly the key to increasing the percentage of students proficient in mathematics, understanding the role of tasks in the mathematics classroom is of essence to the field of mathematics education, but to each and every mathematics student. We begin by discussing the role of cognitively demanding tasks in mathematics teaching and learning

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Conclusion