Transcript Slide 1

Five Major Reasons That Talk Is Critical
to Teaching and Learning
• Talk can reveal understanding and
misunderstanding.
• Talk supports robust learning by boosting memory.
• Talk supports deeper reasoning.
• Talk supports language development.
• Talk supports development of social skills.
Strategies for
Encouraging High-Quality
Student Interaction
The Use of Rich math tasks
• Tasks with multiple solutions and/or strategies
• Opportunities to explain and justify their
strategies and reasoning
• Tasks with simple operations and simple
solutions with provide little or no opportunity to
engage.
Justification of Solutions
• Encourage productive argumentation and
justifications in class discussions
• Justify strategies, not recount procedures
Students Questioning One Another
• Provide students with higher-order question
prompt cards with a range of higher-order
questions
• Use question stems that could be applied to
current content such as “how are ... and ...
similar?”
Use of guidelines for math-talk
• Explain: “This is my solution/strategy….” “I think _______ is
saying that …”
▫ Explain your thinking and show your thinking.
▫ Rephrase what another student has said.
• Agree with reason: “I agree because…”
▫ Agree with another student and describe your reason for
agreeing.
▫ Agree with another student and provide an alternate explanation.
• Disagree with reason: “I disagree because …”
▫ Disagree with another student and explain or show how your
thinking/ solution differs.
• Build on: “I would like to build on that idea…”
▫ Build on the thinking of another student through explanation,
example, or demonstration.
• Go Beyond: “This makes me think about…” “Another way to think
about this is…”
▫ Extend the ideas of other students by generalizing or linking the
idea to another concept.
Teach as Facilitator
Accountability & Assessment
• Hot Seat Questioning: teacher calls on one
student to summarize another student’s
thinking.
• Secret Student: Teacher selects on secret
student. If that student is on task when the
teacher checks on him/her the whole class gets a
point.
• Mini White Boards
• Thumbs Up, Thumps Down
• ADCD Cards/Corners
• Exit Passes with “Why” Questions
• Group Quiz
Productive Partners
How students can be expected to act during partnered academic discussions
4 L's
• Look at your partner
• Lean toward your partner
• Lower your voice
• Listen attentively
Sample Strategies for Precision
Partnering
How teachers can present partnered discussion expectations to students
• Students will be split into A/B partners, consider ability when
pairing.
• Discuss prompt/question
▫ Students will read answer to their partner. Should be read with
expression.
▫ Teacher will indicate when it is time for different partner to share.
▫ Listen to partner's idea, make eye contact and have a pleasant facial
expression. Write down partner's idea.
• Students are expected to always be on task. If students have extra
time, they will share a second answer or simply repeat their first.
▫ . Be an “Idol” not “Idle”, if students are not on task, they will be the first
group called on to report out in the whole group discussion.
• Whole class discussion (various structures for student
accountability)
Sample Discussion Sentence Starters
• To share new ideas...
▫ What if we tried
__________________________?
▫ I have another approach to the problem.
▫ How about _________________?
▫ Here's another possibility. We could
_________________?
• To disagree respectfully...
▫ That is a good approach to the problem, but what
about _________________?
▫ I understand what you're saying but
__________________?
▫ I am not sure that will work because __________,
what if we tried _________?
• To help clarify ideas...
▫ Could you explain what you mean by (other
person's idea here) ?
▫ Could you explain that another way?
▫ What part of the problem is hard to
understand?
▫ What can we do (what do we need to know) to
clear up our confusion?
• To summarize ideas already shared...
▫ I hear you saying ___________, is that
right?(Name) suggested that
_______________.
▫ What do the rest of you think?
▫ I like (Name)'s idea that
_________________.
Number Talks
• The order of number talks has been selected based on
the problems simplicity and its ability to elicit
conversation:
• Middle Grades – 5 Days of simple algorithms – focus on
1 talk move per day.
Week 1:
• Algorithms – beginning with simple problems for your
grade level, moving towards inequalities and
comparisons.
Number Talk
Talk Move
3.4 + 5.7 =
practice respectful/attentive listening positions
14.6 – 12. 8 =
practice repeating partners response
6.3 – 2.7 =
listening, repeating and sharing out partners response
Number Talks
• Equalities – with out variables initially. With
variables (missing values) next.
• Number Lines – Bars, grids and graphs
• Verbal – number trains
• Number Translations – models
• Creating a 6-10 minute ritual each day.
Repeating, practicing and modeling the
communication expectations will go a long way
in opening up shy students, E.L. students and
unfocused/unmotivated students.
Number Talks
• Series of number talks with a common theme across
grade levels (primary, upper elementary, middle
school)
• Rich enough to produce continued discussion
• Emphasis is on reasoning of understanding, not
solving the problem – “defend work”
• http://www.sandi.net/page/33501
EXAMPLE: Number line theme
K -2
Defend the
placement of a
whole number
on a number line
3-5
Defend the
placement of a
fraction on a
number line
6-8
Defend the
placement of
rational
numbers on a
number line
Sample Number Talk
• Alex says that 5/8 is always to the left of ½ on a
number . Cecilia says 5/8 is always to the right of
½ in a number line. Who is correct and why?
0
½
1
Resources
• Articles & Information
▫ www.mathsolutions.com
• Number Talks
▫ http://www.sandi.net/page/33501