Problem-Centered Inquiry

I let my students work on word problems that had no numbers plugged in. They had a list of several numbers to guide them and had to select from the set of numbers. The next time I do this, I will give them word problems with no numbers and let them come up with answers. Then, I will let them make up their own word problems and see if working through this process would help them understand the relationships of different numbers and also let them see how addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division work together. They were much quicker than I thought they would be.