Number Talks: New Beginning


February 1, 2017

 A new semester brings about new methods students. Although preservice teachers (PST) are new to this class, old mind sets are not so new especially with mathematics. Therefore, it's my goal to change ones mindset to challenge PST belief about mathematics. The following series of blogs, like before, are based on utilizing Number Talks (NT) in this methods course. The following post is our first conversation with a couple of related dot images:




Teacher: How many did you see? (All said 8)
Teacher: How did you see it?
Student 1: Top 4 and Bottom 4- 4 +4=8
Student 2: Counting by 2 vertically 2, 4, 6, 8
Student 3: Counted by 1’s

Comments
I purposefully included how they saw it. I wanted my students to be really specific to emphasize that mathematics can be solve in a variety of ways and still will yield the same total.




Teacher: How many did you see? (all said 7). How did you see it?
Student 4: The other was 8 so I took away 1 and got 7; 8-1 is 7
Student 5: I saw a square of 4 and a missing side. 4 + (4-1)
                                                                                4 + 3= 7



Comments


I wanted to get the routine started so PST can get the idea that discourse in mathematics is vital routine. Principles to Actions emphasis that facilitate mathematical discourse is one of the eight mathematics teaching practices (NCTM, 2014). I also wanted by PST to understand that mathematics is deeper than rules and memorizations. This age of learners need a deeper understanding of numbers relationship. Our students must have the chance to increase their ability to reason about quantitative information, possess number sense and check for the reasonableness of solutions and answer (Parrish, 2010). Lastly, I wanted to start the conversation of transform PST thinking of mathematics. Typically, PST enter methods classes with the belief that mathematics is more memorization of rules and procedures in the learning and teaching of mathematics (Handal, 2003). Hopefully in the sixteen week course their views of mathematics teaching and learning will be effected through NT.


References
Parrish, S(2010). Number Talks. Helping Children Build Mental Math and Computation Strategies.
      Math Solutions: Sausalito, CA
Handal, B (2003). Teachers' mathematical beliefs: A review. The Mathematics Educator 13(2).    
       p. 47-57.

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