Required Readings:  Stein & Smith (1998)  Smith (2004) Task 1:  Read Stein an

Required Readings:
 Stein & Smith (1998)
 Smith (2004)
Task 1:
 Read Stein and Smith’s (1998) article about the cognitive demand of math tasks.
Pay particular attention to the four levels of cognitive demand: memorization,
procedures without connections, procedures with connections, and doing
mathematics.
 Complete the Task Sorting Activity. Based on how you understand the four
categories presented in the above article, sort Tasks A-P in Appendix C, High
School into the four categories. Appendix C starts on p. 68 (or 24 of 28), but the
first page is the answer key. Please SKIP the answer key and go to the next page
and start sorting.
 After sorting the activities, please check the agreement between you and the
answer key. Select three tasks that your classification disagreed with that of Stein,
Smith, and colleagues OR that you found particularly hard to classify even if your
final classification did agree with the authors’. Provide a short discussion (2-3
sentences) about why you think each of the three tasks you chose was difficult for
you to classify.
 Finally, answer the following question: Is there a difference between “level of
cognitive demand” and “difficulty”? In what ways are they similar? In what ways
are they different?
Task 2:
 Selecting worthwhile tasks (usually of high cognitive demand) is only the first
step. The execution of the tasks, in other words, how to orchestrate classroom
discourse through worthwhile tasks, is also extremely important.
 Read Smith (2004) and then respond to the following questions:
o How would you rank the prom dress task and the gumball task according
to Smith & Stein’s four levels of cognitive demand? Provide a brief
justification.
o What are some of the key differences in terms of the ways Mrs. Jones and
Mrs. Hamada carried out/implemented the tasks?
Keep your answer to EACH of the above within one-page, single-spaced. However, your
answer to EACH should not be significantly shorter than a full paragraph (5-6 sentences)
Task 3 Math Challenge (bonus: extra 10 points, will be added to your final score):
 Solve Task A on the sorting activity for high school (Appendix C).
 Fully justify your solution. Simply providing a number, regardless of correctness,
will receive 0 credit