Why My Math Students Won’t Stop Solving Problems, Even on Friday Afternoons

If you had told me thirty years ago, back when I started teaching in 1993, that I would one day be begging a room full of Grade 11s to stop doing math on a Friday afternoon and go home for the weekend, I would have laughed. Back then, there were no iPads, no cell phones, and the biggest technological evolution we’d seen was the graphing calculator.

But here I am, in my third year of a total classroom transformation, and there’s a very different kind of energy in this room. 

At GNS, we pride ourselves on the rigours of the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme. And in IB Mathematics, we are tackling logarithmic equations, complex statistics and concepts that many students don’t encounter until first-year university. It’s intense, and it’s challenging. Or, as we like to say in my classroom, it’s spicy.

The shift in my class began when I discovered the work of Peter Liljedahl, a professor at Simon Fraser University. His methodology, Building Thinking Classrooms, is the result of fifteen years of research into how students actually learn. Last June, our school hosted a workshop with one of his co-writers, Kyle Webb, who showed us how these principles can be applied to any subject, from science to spelling.

The core of the “Thinking Classroom” is simple: get students out of their seats. In my class, you won’t see eighteen students sitting at desks, siloed, heads down, maybe working through a problem in their head, maybe stuck but not quite ready to chat it out. Instead, the walls are lined with floor-to-ceiling whiteboards. At the start of class, students grab a colored die from a hat to determine their working group for the day. It’s completely random. Just like in life, you have to work with the people in the office, not just your “buds.”

We work in groups of three. Liljedahl’s research is clear: three is the magic number. With two, one person can dominate. With four, one can hide. With three, everyone has to contribute. Only one whiteboard marker is allowed per group, and they have to switch off. The students stand, they talk and they solve. It’s an approach that I have adopted in all my math classes, both IB and provincial courses. It’s as effective for reinforcing basic concepts as it is for working through complex problems.

And instead of labelling problems ‘easy’ or ‘hard’, we use a spice scale:

• Mild Spice: The foundational concepts.
• Medium Spice: Things are getting interesting.
• Hot Spice: The real head-scratchers.

When a student says, “Oh, this one’s a spicy one!” with a grin on their face, the intimidation factor vanishes. They aren’t afraid to fail; they’re eager to solve.

The best part for me? I’m no longer a “sage on the stage.” I’m walking the room. I can see every group’s progress at a glance. If a group is stuck, I don’t give them the answer. I might give them a hint or ask a group that finished early to go over and help them work it through.

I’ll walk up to a group that just cracked a logarithmic equation and ask, “On a scale of zero to ten, how confident are you?” If they say, “Seven!” I’ll give them a happy face on the board and say, “I can live with a seven. Now try the extra spicy one.”

I recently toured the University of Waterloo’s Math Department, one of the most prestigious mathematical institutions in the world. Those same whiteboards line their halls, where university students stand, collaborate and work out problems together. It confirmed what I see every day at GNS—mathematics is a social, active endeavour.

Every year, I seem to end up with a senior math class on Friday afternoon. In the old days, by 3 p.m., everyone was looking at the clock—including me!

Now? It’s 3:15 p.m. on a Friday, the day is almost over, and I’m literally telling them, “Guys, come on, I’ve got to go home! Put the markers down. You can pick this up on Monday.” They’re so deep in the “flow” of problem-solving that they don’t want to leave. They walk out the door still arguing about the merits of a derivative.

Perhaps most remarkable to me is how this approach has revived a component of mathematics that has been dormant in classrooms for decades: communication. For too long, math has been seen as a silent, solitary marathon. By getting students out from behind their desks and onto their feet, we get to hear their voices. To hear a room full of teenagers debating functions, justifying their logic, and celebrating a problem solved together is more than just good pedagogy—it’s the sound of students finding their confidence.