Addressing the “It’s too Hard” with Low Floor High Ceiling Tasks
In our last post on student engagement, we addressed the three main reasons why students aren’t engaging in class. Today, we look to tackle the #1 reason students aren’t engaged and addressing the “It’s too hard” problem. AKA students aren’t engaging because they aren’t being challenged at an appropriate level. And this goes both ways, by the way. Students need to have access to materials that allows both struggling and excelling students to grow in understanding. Enter my favorite equity tool: The Low Floor High Ceiling Math Task. Did you know that using this problem based approach is one of the most effective teaching strategies for math!
What is a low floor high ceiling task?
Low Floor High Ceiling tasks are an excellent way to promote equity in your classroom and boost student achievement and engagement. But what does it mean to be “low floor high ceiling tasks”? Simply put, these are tasks that allow for multiple entry points and ways to successfully find an answer to the problem. The problem needs to be open ended and approachable, while still having grade level content at the heart. Struggling students are able to implement strategies and use prior knowledge to successfully complete the task. Excelling students are equally able to implement their own strategies to address the problem. The beauty in these is that we are simply lowering the barrier, not the bar for student achievement.
How do I incorporate these math tasks in the classroom?
Low floor high ceiling tasks are a really effective way to introduce topics to your students. Students can rely on any level of prior knowledge to work toward a solution. One of my favorite ways to introduce systems of equations, for example, is to provide students with the “Ostrich Llama Count problem” where students are tasked to find out how many ostriches and llamas are on a farm. Students are able to access and successfully solve this problem using any number of methods. The creative problem solving that comes when students are accessing this problem for the first time is electric. From sketches to tallies, even some tables and graphs and even the odd equation, every single student can solve the problem.
These tasks promote equity in that all students are engaging in the grade level work. You must make sure you select and sequence the sharing of these solutions to make sure all students are seeing the connections. If you have not yet used 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions, go download it right away!
Want more strategies to engage struggling learners?
Low floor high ceiling tasks are great for motivating students who struggle to get involved in the conversation. If you’re looking for additional math intervention strategies to help reach those students check out this blog post with 10 powerful and easy math intervention strategies.
Finding Low Floor High Ceiling Tasks
It’s no wonder so many teachers want to implement low floor high ceiling tasks into their classroom. These tasks are some of the best student engagement activities that you will find for your classroom. But where can you find them? Teachers Pay Teachers certainly has quite a few low floor high ceiling high school math tasks at the ready (geometry teachers, I’ve even got a geometry set of tasks created just for you!).
My favorite inspirations come from Jo Boaler’s low floor high ceiling tasks over on Youcubed! Really, anything Jo does makes me fangirl like crazy–but these tasks are so great and adaptable to different grade levels. Make sure you check them out!
Want to know my other favorite method to address the “It’s too hard” dilemma– personalizing learning for our students! Grab your copy of 5 Simple ways to Boost Student Engagement today! And make sure to join us at The Modern Math Teachers Movement on Facebook where I’ll be going LIVE to chat about student engagement strategies with you!
