Number Talks in Mathematics with Mrs Madden

Today, we had the privilege of having Mrs Madden come to Room 3 during our Mathematics time to share a pedagogical strategy called Number Talks. This is a series of stages we can employ during our Mathematics lessons to make sure we understand what each person is sharing about their strategies and approaches to problem-solving. We learned how important it is to 'revoice' what someone has said so that we hear their communication clearly. Then give everyone an opportunity to 'wait' and process what is being asked. We shared our ideas of how to solve the problem and explored if there were alternative approaches. The variety of ways to solve one multiplication problems was AMAZING! There is no 'one way' - rather a number of ways, so that we can select the one that works best for us.

Today, Mrs Madden asked us to solve:      19  X  5 =?

• without using paper
• without using an algorithm
• then show us your method

What ways can you think of?

"The heart of number talks is classroom conversations focused on making sense of mathematics."

"Mental computation is a key component of number talks because it encourages students to build on number relationships to solve problems instead of relying on memorized procedures. One purpose of a number talk is for students to focus on number relationships and use these relationships to develop efficient, flexible strategies with accuracy."
(From 'Number Talks Build Numerical Reasoning', Sherry Parrish, 2011)

Number Talks is used by Professor Jo Boaler, a renown Mathematics expert from Stanford University, who believes everyone is capable of doing Mathematics to the highest level with the right mindset and number sense.

Here is a link to Jo Boaler's concept of Number Sense where she explains a few ways that you can solve a similar equation: 18 X 5=?

youcubed - What is Number Sense?