The data reported below are from one aspect of a larger project 1 that is exploring the proposition that students learn mathematics best when they engage in building connections between mathematical ideas for themselves (prior to instruction from the teacher) at the start of a sequence of learning rather than at the end. The larger project is studying the type of tasks that can be used to prompt this learning and ways that those tasks can be optimally used, one aspect of which iscommunicating to students that this type of learning requires persistence on their part. Essentially the notion is for teachersto present tasks that the students do not yet know how to answer and to support them in coming to find a solution forthemselves.