Anonymous wrote:There are different levels of understanding. Doing the problems as they were taught in class is what I call plug and play. That just demonstrates you understand the steps to solve the problem. But when a teacher asks a “wholly new concept” chances are they are asking for an application of the concept that was taught. That requires that the student actually understands the material, understands why the computation works the way it does, and can apply critical thinking to solve the problem.
I think there's a point to this type of challenge, but what happens when it is on a test is that panic ensues and the kids can't figure out where to start because the problem looks too unfamiliar. (Except for those students who do math for fun!) These should be given as homework. Perhaps an A/T homework even.