Your lesson is going along great… Your class seems to be tracking with you until you decide to ask a question that actually makes them think.
“Why do you think a negative times a negative equals a positive?”
Crickets.
Then – joy of joys – a hand!
“Yes, Carl?”
“Um, could you repeat the question?”
One of our highest goals as math teachers is to develop critical thinking – to teach students to think logically and arrive at the right conclusions on their own.
But sometimes that feels, frankly