Find or take a photograph that can be used as a stimulus for a maths learning experience in measurement or space. Upload it and list 3 open ended questions you would pose to the children. Support your ideas with literature.

These three open-ended questions allow for the students to explore multiple answers other than one answer. I think it is effective to have the students engage an activity with multiple answers in order to activate their higher order thinking. It is inspiring that the students are engaging with concrete manipulatives. I used to think that answering one is already good enough. However, it is boring to have one answer. I think it is important to assess the students with the higher order thinking which allows the lesson to be effective. It is evident that the lecturer and tutor strongly emphasises that applying open-ended questions and manipulatives in the lesson promote meaningful lessons. Also, it is limited for the students to answer the open ended question. Munroe (2015) promote the students to be critical thinkers, problem solvers and self sufficient learners. The observation I have is that it is also beneficial to integrate both number and spatial sense and the higher order thinking which poses the student into the best knowledge. As a pre-service teacher, I would enable to assess their understanding throughout the developmental stage (Begg & Cavagna, 2009). The problem is that the students have different intelligence and it may not work it. As a pre-service teacher, I would consider both the concrete materials and the open ended questions in order to satisfy the learning experience in maths. Overall, the mathematical curriculum expects the students to obtain the mathematical proficiencies such as reasoning, problem-solving, understanding and fluency (National Educational Standard Authority, 2017). The point of understanding and for future practices, it is important to integrate the needs for all the students and allow the students to engage and not only one student.

Begg, M & Cavagna, A. (2009). “Isometric drawing: opening up the activity to reveal student learning”. Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom. Vol. 14.2. p16.

Munroe, L. (2015). The Open-Ended Approach Framework. European Journal Of Educational Research, 4, 97–104. doi: 10.12973/eujer.2015.p97

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