How to Get Students Talking....About Maths!

The idea of conversation is a relatively easy one. It is something that most people take for granted - being heard, being understood and being able to talk freely on a given topic. However, do children in our schools have the vocabulary required to be successful mathematicians and mathematical problem solvers? I feel that this is something that is holding many of our learners back - being able to talk and discuss ideas meaningfully during maths. 

After reading the article - How to Get Students Talking! Generating Maths Talk That Supports Maths Learning by Lisa Ann de Garcia it made me realise that I need to explicitly teach my students not only the correct vocabulary, but also how to be active listeners, effective thinkers and communicators who engage completely in their learning. However, children do not naturally engage in this level of talk. So this will be my role - to facilitate discourse in my numeracy lessons. 

These are the Five Teaching Practices for Improving the Quality of Discourse in Mathematics Classrooms from the article:

1) Talk moves that engage students in discourse

2) The art of questioning

3) Using student thinking to propel discussions

4) Setting up a supportive environment

5) Orchestrating the discourse.

It also discusses five things that the teacher can do to encourage mathematical discourse:

1) anticipate student responses to challenging mathematical tasks; 2) monitor students’ work on and engagement with the tasks; 3) select particular students to present their mathematical work; 4) sequence the student responses that will be displayed in specific order; and 5) connect different students’ responses and connect the responses to key mathematical ideas

This article links to my Teaching as Inquiry and my introduction of Talk Moves during my maths lessons/workshops/problem solving. The article is about the importance of spoken communication and how it assists learners to become confident problem solvers - this is what I want for my students...confident learners who are able to share their ideas and questions one another (be it in pairs, small groups or whole class) and in doing so this will help grow their mathematical knowledge. It will help to deepen their understanding of key ideas and hopefully they can begin to transfer knowledge between key ideas and mathematical concepts. This will also allow them the ability to transfer their knowledge into new situations and apply it to new contexts.

I like this quote taken from the article, “The teacher becomes not unlike a conductor as he supports students to deepen their understanding of mathematics through a carefully orchestrated environment.” I find this interesting as this sees my role changing to the role of a facilitator, rather than an instructor. This is something that I do try to do across all curriculum areas and I value students voice, but it numeracy and traditional numeracy groups, it can be difficult to not talk too much. It is important that I get the students communicating their ideas and knowledge a lot more than I already do. I can see why introducing problem solving fits in so nicely with the idea of mathematical discourse and Talk Moves.