Number Talks: New Year! New Crew!!

 

August 29, 2022                                    Number Talks: New Year! New Crew!


This is my favorite time of the school year! Math Methods! A new group of teacher candidates to influence to become excellent mathematics teachers. A new group of students to discuss evidence-based math practices. Today we discussed several concepts such as different math representations. For example, PSTs were challenged to represent 3/5 visually, symbolically, physically, and contextually. A couple of my teacher candidates used a number line to represent 3/5. I was impressed. Of course, we engaged in a Number Talks session at the end of the lesson. 

To recap, Number Talks (NT) is a teaching and learning method that helps to develop efficient, flexible, and accurate computation strategies. The strategies build upon the key foundational idea of mathematics (Parrish, S. 2014). According to Parrish(2014), the key components of NT are classroom environment and community, classroom discussion, teachers' role, the role of mental math, and purposeful computation problems. I start with 3 lessons on dot images because there are early childhood and elementary students in this class, and they need to know how to engage in NT using visual models with younger students. This will allow the development of students' fluency, flexibility, and subitizing skills. 

Today's NT was different. The class was held online because we had 3 feathered visitors flying around the classroom. Therefore, we held the class virtually. 



After reviewing the procedures for NT, my students were engaged in three sets of dot images. The images were built purposefully so that students can make connections from one set to the other. Moreover, students were expected to subitize and become flexible when determining the amount of dots in the image. 

Preservice teachers (PST) saw the dots in multiple ways which is what NT is about. I want them to recognize this as an essential part of the process.  PST used various strategies such as multiplication, skip counting, addition, and repeated addition. Interestingly, no one used the prior dot image in their reasoning for the next set of dot images. . PST did not make the connection between the three sets of dot images. 

I will keep you posted on my PST progress this semester. I will upload videos and have them teach NT to their students in their field placements. I can't wait. 

References
Parrish, S. (2014). Number talks. Whole number computation. 2nd ed. Math Solutions: Sausalito, CA.


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