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Differentiation TechniqueFind The Controversy

Read The Overview: Find The Controversy in Any Topic

By leveraging a point of contention, we can get students interested in just about any topic. Yes, even boring old spelling has controversy we can exploit!

Specific Examples of “Find The Controversy”

3 Paradoxes

The paradox content imperative is a blast to expose students to. Here are three famous paradoxes to delight and confound your deep thinkers (and one bonus from Yogi Berra).
The Surprises Within a Triangle’s Angles

The Surprises Within a Triangle’s Angles

Discovering what is interesting and unexpected about a triangle's angles. What twists have I unintentionally spoiled for my students over the years?
How *Not* To Ask Questions About A Novel

How *Not* To Ask Questions About A Novel

These "discussion questions" highlight so many of the problems we've been looking at.

3 More Paradoxes, Part III

Here are even more amazing paradoxes to baffle your students: Buridan's Bridge, the Bootstrap Paradox, and the Barber Paradox.

Tickling Curiosity

Let's look at a way to encourage and scaffold curiosity in our classes using a "Book of Unanswered Questions." Begin by sharing intriguing objects or images and asking your own questions. Give kids a chance to find answers to their questions. Then encourage students to bring in their own intriguing conversation starters. Finally, move students towards curriculum based questions.

Ask Them Which Is Better

Moving from analysis to evaluation sure makes things more fun. Why? Check out these examples. Which would you rather answer?

Constructing Meaningful Math Projects

Here are four key attributes I look for when developing math projects: juicy data, interesting conflict, an expert's lens, and a final product.

Three Videos With Mind-Blowing Optical Illusions

Paradoxes and illusions are a great area of study to blow students' minds. I recently discovered an amazing artist, Kokichi Sugihara, who creates and films optical illusions using just paper and balls.

Depth and Complexity: Ethics… In Math!?

The Ethics prompt of depth and complexity fits so easily into the humanities… but what about ethics in math?!

Conflict and Quadrilaterals

Rather than merely asking "what patterns are there in these quadrilaterals" we'll set up an exploration of conflict and quadrilaterals.
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