Understanding Rich Tasks in Mathematics

Study Notes

Rich tasks are accessible to a wide range of learners and offer opportunities for initial success.
They might be set in contexts that draw the learner into the mathematics, making the starting point or the emerging mathematics intriguing.
Rich tasks challenge learners to think for themselves and offer different levels of challenge, with a real challenge involved, regardless of the learner's level.
They have a low threshold and high ceiling, allowing for extension and further challenge.
Rich tasks allow learners to pose their own problems, use different methods, and have different responses.
They offer opportunities to identify elegant or efficient solutions and broaden students' skills and mathematical content knowledge.
Rich tasks encourage creativity, imaginative application of knowledge, and critical thinking.
They have the potential to reveal patterns, lead to generalisations, or produce unexpected results.
Rich tasks can reveal underlying principles, make connections between areas of mathematics, and encourage collaboration and discussion.

They are accessible and extendable, allowing learners to make decisions.
Rich tasks involve learners in testing, proving, explaining, reflecting, and interpreting.
They promote discussion and communication, encouraging originality and invention.
Rich tasks encourage 'what if' and 'what if not' questions, making them enjoyable and containing opportunities for surprise.

Rich tasks are important because they offer different opportunities to meet the different needs of learners at different times.
The environment in which rich tasks are presented, including the support and questioning used by the teacher, is crucial in making them "rich".
Learners should be encouraged to adopt roles that make them independent, assertive constructors of their own understanding, who challenge and reflect.