ABSTRACT
The forced mute provides with opportunities to control the sharing of information and answers. After all, knowing the answer typically stops or diminishes children’s thinking and related conversations. One strategy for providing the gift of time for thinking involves setting up an unobtrusive “quiet” signal to indicate a student has an answer or idea. During the pandemic, the need for virtual learning environments and social distancing made it difficult to incorporate the social aspect of learning mathematics. There has been much discussion regarding the impact of virtual learning on student achievement. Some teachers and math coaches have shared that students are keeping up with facts and procedures but have difficulty flexibly solving a variety of problems, defending their answers, critiquing the reasoning of others, and solving non-routine problems. The creativity displayed by teachers and parents in designing meaningful learning experiences in spite of all of the challenges was amazing.
