The Teacher's Watch-List

While a class works on any rich task, these are the behaviours worth a pencil mark against a name. Keep the list beside you during every solve phase, and notice which ones you catch yourself doing.

• Tries small cases before attacking the big one
• Organises the cases: a table, a list, a drawing
• Asks the reversing question: not what happens but when does it happen
• Says always or never, and then tries to justify it
• Persists after the first idea fails
• Writes a clear solution but will not come to the board
• Asks the next question before being told
• Explains a classmate's idea better than the classmate did

Why a list, and not a test

The open math circle is self-selecting: the teacher never pre-judges talent, the problems and the children decide. But the deciding only works if someone is watching for the right things. Two of the eight are deliberately about the quiet child — the clear written solution that never reaches the board, and the reversing question asked under the breath — because the board alone catches the communicators and loses the shy strong thinker far too often.

Using it in a session

Pick one rich task from this collection (the Thousand Doors or the Triangle Tiling are good first choices). Put the list beside you. Make a mark, not a judgement. At the end of the circle, each teacher names one behaviour from the list they saw in themselves that day.