Hook, line, & thinker: Math hooks that catch every student

Most math lessons open with a rule. Here's the procedure, here's an example, now practice it.

But what if we flipped that?

The strongest lessons start with students noticing and wondering, before you've explained anything. In our newest video, I show how a simple two-question routine can reshape how a lesson begins.

Put a task on the screen. Skip the explanation. Skip the modeling. Just ask:

What do you notice?

What do you wonder?

No prior skill is required to answer either one. That's the point. This hook works for every student in the room, not just the ones already fluent in the topic.

From there, something happens naturally. One student notices something, another builds on it, someone else asks a question that sends the whole class looking closer. They're spotting patterns and chasing ideas before you've taught a single step, and they got there because the room made space for it, not because anyone walked them through it.

That's not a hunch. Students consistently build deeper understanding when they wrestle with a problem before being shown how to solve it. Our co-founder Jo Boaler has built a career studying exactly this kind of classroom, where sense-making comes first and procedure comes second.

Try it tomorrow. Open with a notice-and-wonder before you name the learning target. Those first few minutes do more for conceptual understanding than anything that follows.