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Eliminating math misconceptions is difficult and merely repeating a lesson or extra practice will not help. Telling students were they are mistaken will not work either. Recognizing student misconceptions and immediately focusing on the misconception is important. Providing guiding questions using inductive reasoning is the best approach, along with the use of writing prompts which help reveal further student misconceptions.

Today's math curriculum is teaching students to expect -- and excel at -- paint-by-numbers classwork, robbing kids of a skill more important than solving problems: formulating them. At TEDxNYED, Dan Meyer shows classroom-tested math exercises that prompt students to stop and think.

"A McNugget number is a positive integer that can be obtained by adding together orders of McDonald's® Chicken McNuggets" While these numbers are interesting in themselves, I'm particularly taken by the idea of building an interesting problem based on consumer or popular culture. What other prompts might we find in a similar vien?

"A McNugget number is a positive integer that can be obtained by adding together orders of McDonald's® Chicken McNuggets" Find the largest number that IS NOT a McNugget number.