Numeracy at Leila North Ms. Emma’s class! This year the class explored how we could effectively build our math community. Students did this by taking risks, embracing productive struggle, and using multiple strategies on one question. One avenue this led us down was Number Talks. Number Talks is when the entire class engages in a series of mental math questions. One question at a time is written on the board and students think carefully about how they could solve it. Their goal is to find multiple different ways to solve a seemingly simple question. Students would either show me a thumbs up in their lap or, in the event they had used several strategies, they would indicate this with their fingers. Students were reminded that being “good at math” had nothing to do with speed. They could take all the time they needed as long as each mathematician was thinking carefully about what was on the board. For example: How many different ways could you solve 18 x 5 mentally? One student realized she could solve it by doing 2 groups of 18, plus 2 groups of 18, plus 1 group of 18: 18 x 2 = 36 18 x 2 = 36 18 x 1 = 18 = 90 Another student realized she could HALVE one number and DOUBLE the other, making it become 9 x 10 instead. A grade seven student realized he could HALVE one of the numbers, and add it twice: 9 x 5 plus 9 x 5.
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Numeracy at Leila North - Seven Oaks School Division
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Numeracy at Leila North
Ms. Emma’s class!
This year the class explored how we could effectively build our math community. Students did
this by taking risks, embracing productive struggle, and using multiple strategies on one
question. One avenue this led us down was Number Talks. Number Talks is when the entire class
engages in a series of mental math questions. One question at a time is written on the board and
students think carefully about how they could solve it. Their goal is to find multiple different
ways to solve a seemingly simple question. Students would either show me a thumbs up in their
lap or, in the event they had used several strategies, they would indicate this with their fingers.
Students were reminded that being “good at math” had nothing to do with speed. They could
take all the time they needed as long as each mathematician was thinking carefully about what
was on the board. For example: How many different ways could you solve 18 x 5 mentally?
One student realized she could solve it by doing 2 groups of 18, plus 2 groups of 18, plus 1 group
of 18:
18 x 2 = 36
18 x 2 = 36
18 x 1 = 18
= 90
Another student realized she could HALVE one number and DOUBLE the other, making it
become 9 x 10 instead.
A grade seven student realized he could HALVE one of the numbers, and add it twice: 9 x 5 plus
9 x 5.
Another area in which we tried to build our math community was through problem solving. We
looked closely at the “Pit of Learning” as Jo Boaler calls it, and talked a lot about what that felt
like, and why it was important that we struggled in math. Many students, when asked to describe
math, will say it is all about rules and procedures. But most mathematicians will tell you that
math is about the study of patterns. Mathematics, at its heart, is about pattern-seeking. One way
in which we engaged in this type of learning was inviting the students to find and study patterns
in the world’s most famous triangle that has fascinated people for centuries, Pascal’s Triangle!
Students were given a copy of Pascal’s triangle with some missing numbers and in pairs, were