Maths Talk: Starting off Fresh

Module ONE with Jodi Hunter

What a session! After the one and a half hours that we spent at the end of a long school day on Tuesday, I marvelled with another teacher how a presenter/ teacher who is animated, articulate, and an expert in their field along with effective and purposeful group participation can really stimulate a tired brain.

Here are some of the key ideas and 'learnings' I gleaned from yesterday session.

Prior to attending the first session we were asked to read this journal article.
Reading Link - Questioning
Teacher Questioning to Elicit Students’ Mathematical Thinking in Elementary School Classrooms

A Maths community Includes

• Balance between teacher and student voice - the teacher has an important role in listening and modelling not fully directing all talk.
• Collective thinking
• Multiple zones of proximal development - other children have different experiences and knowledge. Children can call others into their area of proximal development including the teacher.
• Intentional engagement in the reasoning of others - teaching children to talk productively - what does listening look like - not sitting but hearing, linking to experiences, forming an opinion and taking a position

All of this ( the above) requires high levels of cognitive demand. Unless we as teachers start upping the level of challenge in the classroom none of this will work. If children don't need to work together to solve a task there is no point doing it. Give students a task where they need to work together in order to meet the challenge.

A Lesson

1. Conceptual knowledge/ warmup- patterns, numbers after eg. using a pattern and transferring this into other areas... categories of knowledge or concepts, relationships

2. Launch a problematic task

3. Small groups - groups of 4 (3 is better than 5) Half working with the teacher - half working independently.

4.  Large group discussion where students are chosen to share back.

5. Connect - if the idea has not arisen in the problem solving this is where the teacher

Teacher as Facilitator in a Cognitive Discourse 

- Talk Moves ( See link for examples) 

Teachers need to guide the children to enable the cognitive discourse - this is not for the children to use but for the teacher ( children sometimes pick this up and use it too) Talk moves is to find the 'why' in the classroom.

Revoicing - As a teacher start using re-voicing in a purposeful way. Stop and think about what needs to be re-voiced and what not. The purpose: clarify what a child has said or highlight and idea.

Elicitation - ask the students to agree/ disagree and the reason why - needs to be agree/disagree with a reason, get rid off fence sitting - if they don't have an opinion then they need to ask a question to clarify their opinion

Repeat - get the children to repeat what other children have said to give them a purpose for listening. Don't use repeat as a behaviour management strategy use it as a tool to ensure that an important idea is being heard and processed. If a child can't repeat ask them to say 'Can you say that again?' or I'm going to ask you to repeat this idea but I'm going to get 2 other children to repeat that idea first and then come back to you". Wait time is important for 'repeat'.

Wait time - process time, allow children to think before they speak, to process other children's ideas and form their own opinions. Start teaching them to use it with themselves. ( Notice this was used in the choral counting video)

Add On - asking children to extend or add to an idea that someone else has shared.

Choral Counting

Jodi used role play to teach the group how to use choral counting as a conceptual knowledge warmup.

Choral counting notes - when you hear children tapering off stop and go back. Notice the pattern. Start from the top and reinforce the count. Make sure that you give the children wait time to process the first few numbers before you start counting. Tell them the idea is that they are saying this together and not rushing ahead. As a teacher think about what number you start with- check before and make sure how you are going to record it ( rows, numbers)  and what shows the patterns best. If you have repeated the group before from 1 don't start from there again. Start from a different number each time you stop and restart.
You could get the children to design their own choral counts. Teaching - 10 to 15 minute warm up.
Record it on the board - not hundreds board. Prepare carefully first.

Types of Talk

How to engage in productive types of talk:
Working in groups? = lots of unproductive talk going on.
We need to teach children how to talk in groups. Researchers ( Mecer and colleagues - Go and check out their free resources - Thinking Together) tracked children's types of talk and found that unless children were taught how to talk productively in groups they didn't talk productively at all.

Cumulative talk - this is my way, this is my way, this is my way - each child explains their idea, it accumulates but does not discuss or develop any new knowledge.

Disputational talk - 'Oh they think like that because they are the brainy ones' - disputing but not digging deep into learning eg. 'how do you know that?', using paper scissor rock or voting on opinions

Exploratory talk - productive kind of talk See slide: Facilitating Small Group Discussions

Key ideas from 'Types of Talk':
You're challenging an idea NOT another person
It's important to role play how to ask a question or what questions to use. eg. Can you explain that in a different way? pick out the part you didn't understand and ask about that. This is about slowing down what is happening in the classroom and pointing it out. Don't let children give long explanations.
Notice what is happening in the classroom - I notice that ...because...
DON'T ask for volunteers - lack of purpose is not structured to build to a big mathematical idea.
Fallacy - 'So many children think that maths is about getting correct answers and only those who have correct answers have a voice.'

Orchestrating Discussion: Five Practices  

The subheading of this section is also a book - note to self: research this book!

Anticipate - prepare and anticipate
Monitor  - for reasoning and understanding
Think - Who am I going to share back and why? Maybe prepare students for sharing just a certain part - I would like you to share this ( practice sharing this)


A few gems to finish with...

As teachers we should be using wait time but we also want children to be using wait time - thinking before they speak.
Use correct mathematical language and terms
As a teacher you should not be the authority on mathematics or your 'brainy' students. 'Maths' itself should be the authority. ( It's ok to say 'I don't know, lets find out')

Some of the jargon that was used throughout.
Jargon:
Status, discourse, justification, reciprocity - sharing ideas with each other across small and large group, challenge and debate, collective thinking, cognitive demand, conceptual warm-up, problematic task, social/strength based grouping - eg. has a strength in talking/thinking/ listening, low floor- high ceiling tasks, teacher as facilitator, mathematical practices, Number incorporated into strand, cognitive discourse

As you can see there was an incredible amount of content to cover, some brilliant ideas and learning to implement and many things to further research and explore. A brilliant first session!