‘Math talks’ bring conversation to class

Teachers in Washington elementary schools say they’ve seen promising results from a new project they call “Math Talks,” a series of lessons for Pre-K through second graders that lasts five to 15 minutes at the start of their math classes.

“Teachers are taught seven different strategies to use with their students,” Stewart Elementary Instructional Coach April Six said. “It’s really to encourage math discourse among our students, which means having our students talk and share their thinking in mathematics.”

Contrary to traditional math lessons, math talks don’t always have one right answer. Six said the goal was to encourage critical thinking.

“We want to reinforce the idea that there’s multiple ways to solve a problem, and also that we don’t all think alike and don’t all come up with answers the same way, and that’s OK,” she said. “We use that to create and foster a classroom environment where all answers are accepted … we also not only want students to share their thinking, but we want our students to be good listeners and listen to other students as they share their thinking.”

Six said math talks drew their educational value from those conversations.

“I look back to when I learned math, we really didn’t talk about it, there was an answer, you moved on,” she said. “Now, there’s conversations. Kids are able to share their thinking, how they solved the problem, and to talk about it and engage in that type of conversation … we’re also building computation through these strategies that we’re teaching, as well as fluency.”

Six said the district had seen promising results from the lessons, which started at Stewart this year and Lincoln a few years prior.

“We saw improvement this winter, our math screening data went up,” she said. “Each month, teachers are learning a new strategy, and I’m in the classroom observing. Students are communicating and they’re problem solving, I’ve seen an increase in that as well.”

Those results are cause for optimism.

“Our teachers have been very excited about this process,” Six said. “This has been very good for our students and our staff. We’ve made a lot of progress in math and we’re noticing kids using that mathematical conversation, and I’m really glad we decided to move forward with this project.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com