ABSTRACT
Teachers who have heterogeneously grouped classes might find it advantageous to create groups of two or three students to consider the challenge presented to the class; larger groups often prove counterproductive as they invite some students to sit passively while others are actively engaged in attacking the challenge. To offer students a chance to solve such a problem requires the teacher to select an appropriate challenge. Additionally, within the small groups, individual student challenges can produce some creative results. The motivational device is to present a challenge for students to show that they can acknowledge the order of operations. It is not always easy to select the proper challenge which will serve as a motivational device for a particular lesson. Yet there are sources other than textbooks which provide interesting, challenging problems, which, if used properly, can be presented succinctly so as to require relatively little time for students to comprehend.
