Math Talk

Let us talk Math! I remember many years back when I was a student; there was very less emphasis on discussion in the class during the session. Best students would be those who were sitting silently and seems to be working seriously! There is no doubt in the fact that there are different learning styles. However, in changing times, there is more focus on activity-based courses where children learn to become confident problem solvers by engaging in meaningful talks and that could be in pairs, small groups or in whole groups. The National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards emphasizes the need for students to discuss their mathematical thinking as a way to increase understanding. There are many ways to engage students in purposeful math talk.

Asking questions is one of the important ways by which they learn to reason mathematically. Some of the significant questions that could motivate and engage students to get involved in meaningful ‘Math Talk’ are;

What do you think?

Do you agree or disagree?

Why?

How can you prove it?

How did you reach this conclusion?

Does that always work?

Can you think of another example?

Can you predict the next one?

What would happen if?

Engaging in meaningful class discussion is another way to motivate students to participate effectively. Few examples could be;

Asking a student to solve a question on the board and asking another student to explain how he/she did it.

If different students solve a question by different methods asking them to explain their strategies and rationale for them and reflecting on the class to choose the one/ones, they liked the most and why.

Asking children to come to the board one by one and perform different steps of a problem and give their rationale. In this way, they work on a problem collectively that further develops deeper mathematical understanding.

So these are the few methods by which a teacher can control and channelize the class discussions. Building a Math Talk environment in a math class would help to spark interest in the students and bound to engage them in the discussions that further deepen their mathematical understanding as they learn to articulate their mathematical thinking.


You can find more ideas on it in the following documents: 
http://www.eduplace.com/math/mthexp/pdf/mathtalk.pdf
http://www.hmheducation.com/mathexpressions/pdf/kfauthor-mathtalk.pdf
http://www.trianglehighfive.org/pdf/007_math_talk.pdf
http://www.mathsolutions.com/documents/0-941355-53-5_L.pdf

Template to Build Math-Talk Community http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/studentsuccess/lms/math_talk_learning_community.pdf

Happy Math Talking folks!