But strategic teachers take this responsibility a step further. They intervene to provide each individual student with enough support to make essential tools a permanent part of the toolkit. They time intervention and support to match the challenges at hand. They approach the problem or challenge with the wrong operating procedures and the wrong strategies. Given more practice on the same kinds of problems, they are apt to keep right on with the tangled thinking and the wrong rules.
Effective teachers ask students to reveal the patterns of their thinking . . .
This diagnostic process is central to the intervention process. If teachers do not take the time to ask, it is unlikely that they will be able to match interventions to individual students. Remedial programs become parking lots instead of repair shops. Once the teacher knows how the student is approaching the problem, the teacher may help to untangle the thinking and may suggest some better strategies to apply in the future. Even though she knows this student has been taught these skills previously at the opening of the unit, it is clear that the skills never took root.