PME-NA 42 – What Makes a Mathematics Lesson Interesting to Students?

Research report by Leslie Dietiker, Rashmi Singh, Meghan Riling, and Hector I. Nieves.

How can we design mathematical lessons that spark student interest? To answer this, we analyzed teacher-designed and enacted lessons that students described as interesting for how the content unfolded. When compared to those the same students described as uninteresting, multiple distinguishing characteristics are evident, such as the presence of misdirection, mathematical questions that remain unanswered for extended time, and a greater number of questions that are unanswered at each point of the lesson. Low-interest lessons did not contain many special narrative features and mostly had questions that were answered immediately. Our findings offer guidance for the design of lessons that can shift student mathematical dispositions.