How might we deepen our understanding of NCTM’s teaching practices? What if we team to learn and practice?

For our first session of Embolden Your Inner Mathematician, we focus on Subitizing and Number Talks: Elicit and use evidence of student thinking.

From Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All

Elicit and use evidence of student thinking.
Effective teaching of mathematics uses evidence of student thinking to assess progress toward mathematical understanding and to adjust instruction continually in ways that support and extend learning.

And, from Taking Action: Implementing Effective Mathematics Teaching Practices in K-Grade 5

Meeting the demands of world-class standards for student learning requires teachers to engage in what as been referred to as “ambitious teaching.” Ambitious teaching stands in sharp contrast to what many teachers experienced themselves as learners of mathematics. (Smith, 3 pag.)

In ambitious teaching, the teacher engages students in challenging tasks and collaborative inquiry, and then observes and listens as students work so that she or he can provide an appropriate level of support to diverse learners.  The goal is to ensure that each and every student succeeds in doing meaningful, high-quality work, not simply executing procedures with speed and accuracy. (Smith, 4 pag.)

Worth repeating:

The goal is to ensure that each and every student succeeds in doing meaningful, high-quality work, not simply executing procedures with speed and accuracy.

How might we foster curiosity, creativity, and critical reasoning while deepening understanding? What if we listen to what our students notice and wonder?

My daughter (7th grade) and I were walking through our local Walgreens when I hear her say “Wow, I wonder…” I doubled back to take this photo.

To see how we used this image in our session to subitize (in chunks) and to investigate the questions that arose from our wonderings, look through our slide deck for this session.

From  NCTM’s 5 Practices, we know that we should do the math ourselves, predict (anticipate) what students will produce, and brainstorm what will help students most when in productive struggle and when in destructive struggle. What if we build the habit of showing what we know more than one way to add layers of depth to understanding?

When mathematics classrooms focus on numbers, status differences between students often emerge, to the detriment of classroom culture and learning, with some students stating that work is “easy” or “hard” or announcing they have “finished” after racing through a worksheet. But when the same content is taught visually, it is our experience that the status differences that so often beleaguer mathematics classrooms, disappear.  – Jo Boaler

What if we ask ourselves what other ways can we add layers of depth so that students make sense of this task? How might we better serve our learners if we elicit and use evidence of student thinking to make next instructional decisions? 

#ChangeTheFuture

#EmbraceAmbitiousTeaching

#EmboldenYourInnerMathematician

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Boaler, Jo, Lang Chen, Cathy Williams, and Montserrat Cordero. “Seeing as Understanding: The Importance of Visual Mathematics for Our Brain and Learning.” Journal of Applied & Computational Mathematics 05.05 (2016): n. pag. Youcubed. Standford University, 12 May. 2016. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.

Leinwand, Steve. Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All. Reston, VA.: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2014. (p. 46) Print.

Smith, Margaret Schwan., et al. Taking Action: Implementing Effective Mathematics Teaching Practices in Grades K-5. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2017.