Concept Quests are compilations of challenging mathematical tasks that align with the units in our core math curriculum. Each of the Concept Quests units consist of 12 problem-solving tasks and puzzles, including:
- 6 Excursions to apply and deepen students’ understanding of essential unit concepts. Excursion tasks often ask students to apply the mathematics they are currently working on in novel ways and/or authentic contexts.
- 6 Adventures to extend students’ thinking and provide opportunities for them to make important mathematical connections. Adventure tasks are often significantly more challenging than Excursion tasks.
Excursions and Adventures may be completed in any order and at your child’s own pace. They may work on these with other students or own their own. Collaborating with others, especially with particularly challenging tasks, is encouraged.
These additional curriculum resources provide an opportunity for students to be mathematically challenged, every day. Not all students will gravitate towards Concept Quests. Some students may think the problems are too hard for them to engage in with their current skills and understanding. Other students may have the skills and conceptual understanding they need, but may be challenged in figuring out what to do. Students who have not often struggled with mathematics may find the sensation new- and potentially unpleasant. And some students will be thrilled with the prospect of a task that is not easily solved and may take days - even weeks - of perseverance!
How can you support your child as a learner in this process? First, ask your child if they have tried any Concept Quest tasks. If so, some follow-up questions might include:
- What did you find challenging or easy about the task?
- How did the task ask you to think differently than you have been thinking in math?
- How did it feel to leave the task incomplete?
- How did it feel to solve the task successfully?
Encouragement is important to this process, as well as an understanding that our child may take a long time or not use the most efficient strategy to solve a problem. It is my hope that every child feels intrigued by these tasks. All too often, children come away from math thinking that if they don’t solve problems quickly, easily, or in a particular way, they are not mathematicians. Instead, we need to provide opportunities for children to discover that really good math problems can be solved in multiple ways, and take time and exceptional effort. The challenge makes the feeling of success so much more powerful when the task has been conquered!
A quick note about homework…Concept Quest tasks are not intended for homework, at least not homework that needs to be completed for the next day. There may be occasional opportunities for your child to take a task home to work on, but not necessarily complete. Ten to twenty minutes might be a reasonable time to expect a child to work on a task. (They are sometimes hard to put down, though!) It is important to consider your role in this situation. It is not your job to solve the problem yourself or show your child how to solve the problem. You are welcome to explore the task yourself and ask your child what he/she is thinking or struggling with, but do not take away your child’s opportunity to solve it and experience that wonderful feeling of accomplishment.
Excursions and Adventures are designed to complement students’ classwork, so it may be that you only see Concept Quest materials after the task has been solved. If you do see a task come home, use this opportunity to engage with some discussion about mathematics with your child. Ask your child how he/she solved the problem, and if they know of anyone doing it in a different way. Share how you might solve the problem yourself, and see if you can make connections between your strategy and your child’s.
I hope that your child has an exciting year in mathematics!
Sincerely,
Kim Marworth, Ph.D.
Flexible Math Concepts
