Approximately 4 hours

Module 3 Goals

The goals for this module include:

Teachers will be able to conduct a number talk with a group of students.
Teachers will be able to write 11 different types of addition/subtraction word problems.
Teachers will be able to identify and name the various strategies that children use to solve addition/subtraction problems.
Teachers will understand how number talks benefit their students’ learning.

think The purpose is to encourage students to have more than one way to solve a problem, not just to find a “best” solution strategy.

Open your students’ eyes to creating more than one way, and conversations about efficiency come with time. Focusing on efficiency right away does not make sense if someone only has one way to solve a problem. They need to have more than one strategy choice to compare different ways.

Introduction

This 4 hour module will introduce you to a classroom discussion technique called a Number Talk. Number Talks are short 5 to 10 minute conversations with students that are designed to develop number sense. Teachers that have used Number Talks have found that all students can participate and are excited to see that all students are capable of learning very sophisticated ideas about numbers. Teachers who successfully integrate Number Talks in their classroom describe a certain joy when teaching math that they have never seen before. This joy is shared by the teacher performing the Number Talk as well as the joy students have when they are allowed to be creative and share their thinking.

Activity 1: The Border Problem

The goal of this activity is for you to understand the routine of a Number Talk. Getting students to begin composing and decomposing numbers in chunks is an important goal of number talks. Recording student thinking using symbols allows students to share their strategies and allows them to learn from each other.

Activity 2: Number Talks Roleplay

You will learn several different types of Number Talks during this course. In this activity, you will focus on a Number Talk called a dot pattern talk. The dot pattern routine you will use closely matches the routine used in the Border Problem. In order to get good at Number Talks you need to practice doing Number Talks. This activity is designed for you and a partner to act as a teacher and other members of your PLC as students. It is very important in your development as a teacher doing Number Talks to perform Number Talks and to stay in your given role. The teachers who stay in these roles during practice time tend to be the ones who implement Number Talks most successfully in their own classroom.

Activity 3: Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI)

This research program has been around for approximately 40 years and has had a lasting impact on how students make sense of operations involving whole numbers. You will learn how to write 11 different types of word problems related to addition and subtraction. Even more important is that you will learn different strategies that children naturally use to solve problems and learn to think of the operation of addition and subtraction in different ways. All students are capable of learning important mathematical ideas and all students come to your class with sophisticated understandings. Understanding some of the basics of CGI will help you identify the strengths that your students already have and give you a road map and a vision to build on these strengths. Understanding how these strategies fit together will provide an opportunity to define number sense. You will learn a definition of number sense as well as how you can use Number Talks to increase the number sense of all of your students.

Activity 4: Jo Boaler examples

You will see how Jo Boaler defines number sense and gives you an opportunity to discuss in your PLC how Number Talks can be used in your classroom to increase number sense.