The Instruct: Building Thinkers, Not Answer-Getters

Last week, we broke down the Instruct phase — how to plan lessons like a chef curating a recipe, balancing tasks, facilitation, and engagement to make learning stick.

This week, I’m serving up the next course: what Instruct actually sounds like in action. I’m sharing a real lesson I planned, facilitated, and reflected on using the Thinking Through a Lesson Protocol (TTLP) — a “Build a Pizza” task that pushed students to reason about relationships, not race toward answers.

You’ll hear how purposeful planning and lesson study gave me the space to pause instead of rescue, to question instead of tell, and to help students uncover structure on their own. I also reflect on how these moments connect directly to the Standards for Mathematical Practice and the Effective Teaching Practices that develop confident, independent thinkers.

🎧 Listen in to learn how to:

• Use questioning to cultivate reasoning instead of guessing.
• Turn productive struggle into a tool for understanding.
• Plan with enough intention to respond, not react.

This episode brings last week’s Instruct framework to life — a behind-the-scenes look at what it means to teach math through curiosity, connection, and care.

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