We have recently begun engaging in something called "Number Talks" in the classroom. These are classroom conversations around math problems that are solved mentally. These conversations last about 5-15 minutes. During a number talk, the teacher poses a problem and charts the strategies that students share. All students have a chance to share his or her way of thinking about and solving the problem. As a result of number talks, students develop efficiency, accuracy and fluency with mathematical thinking using mental math. Students move away from strict memorization and move into sense-making and reasoning around the mathematics (Instructional Toolkit for Mathematics, 2013-14).
We are finding these conversations extremely effective and engaging. Students look forward to our number talk each day. I love seeing the excitement in my kiddies around math... it is absolutely magical!
We have started off simple with out number talks by using dots... here is an example from the other day!
No comments:
Post a Comment