Action Plan

This page provides details on the implementation of number talks. These number talks took place 15 minutes a day, 3-4 days a week, for 6 weeks. You can find the tentative calendar here.

Goals of the Study:

Improve or extend students' number sense
Improve or extend students' computational fluency
Name and apply mental addition and subtraction strategies
Foster positive feelings about math
Foster ability to and confidence in explaining mathematical thinking

Individual Student Goals:

At a student level, I simply wanted my class to feel more confident in their own mathematical ability and discourse. I explained to students that number talks would help us learn addition and subtraction strategies and how to talk about our math thinking. While students did not write down these goals, we took time to privately reflect on these two questions after every number talk:

How did you feel about solving this problem?
How did you feel about explaining your thinking?

Over the course of this study, I checked on individual student progress towards these goals through student interviews and surveys.

What

To help meet the goals outlined, I implemented Number Talks. Number Talks are brief discussions (15 minutes) that focus on student solutions for a single, carefully chosen mental math problem. Students share their different mental math processes aloud while the teacher records their thinking visually on a chart or board. The focus is not on the correct answer, but on all the possible strategies that can be used to find the answer. Each student has a chance to explain their method, and everyone else will learn from other people's methods. Other students may question, critique, or build on the strategies that are shared.

How

Whole group number talks were implemented 3 days a week while I met with a small group 1-2 times a week. Here was our normal whole group routine:

Teacher writes an addition or subtraction problem on the board.
Students have private think time to mentally solve the problem. Students put a thumb by their heart when they've got one way to solve, then an additional finger up for each additional strategy they discover.
Teacher calls for just answers, and writes all responses on the board with no discussion.
Students are given time to talk about their strategies with a partner using sentence starters (see "Today's Talk Moves" on the picture above).
Teacher asks if anyone wants to change their answer after talking with their partner.

6. Teacher calls for volunteers to share and explain their thinking, and records the students' steps on chart paper. Students use "Whole Group Sharing" hand signals shown above to share if they used the same strategy or not. This is repeated with 5-6 students.

7. Once there are 5-6 strategies on the board, students share what patterns or similarities they noticed across the different strategies. Then, the class works together to explicitly name the math strategies used if they have not been named already.

Partner talk and explicit sentence stems were adjustments made after observing low engagement in the first few number talks. After these additional steps were implemented, student engagement improved greatly. Students became eager to participate in number talks, they enjoyed having the chance to share with a partner and check their work before sharing whole group. Sentence stems gave all students the same starting point, giving everyone the confidence to share their thoughts. After their initial sharing, students could add to others' thoughts or share a different strategy. If some did not have more to share, they were still able to learn from class discussions.

All thinking was recorded on chart paper and posted around the room. We created a running list of addition and subtraction strategies, with examples from our number talks, for students to reference in the future. See below:

Small group number talks followed a similar routine 2 days a week, with 2-3 students who needed extra support in math. These students were still encouraged to solve the problem mentally, but were able to write down their thinking on a whiteboard. Seeing their thinking helped them build confidence and avoid confusion with all the different strategies. If students could not think of more than one way to solve the problem, I would show them other strategies using manipulatives first, then we would do a similar problem so they could apply it themselves. It was difficult to consistently pull a small group for number talks because these students also needed support with concepts from our scheduled math block, and if there wasn't enough time for both, curriculum support took priority. To supplement support, I allowed these students to use a whiteboard during whole group number talks. This helped ease their math anxiety and build their confidence because they could visually see their thinking, and had something to reference when sharing with the class. Additionally, to support these students during whole group number talks, I would check in with them during private think time. This allowed me to still provide one on one support and build their confidence at the same time.

Why

I decided to use number talks because they are a research based strategy. Number talks help students develop accurate, efficient, and flexible math strategies. Encouraging students to think about numbers in different ways helps build their number sense and computational fluency. Additionally, Number Talks were best for the population outlined because they require everyone's participation and allow students to learn from each other in a safe way. This allowed students who performed lower in math to practice without judgment, which helped build their skills and confidence. For students who excelled in math, number talks allowed them to practice and extend their skills because they were challenged with finding multiple ways to solve the same problem. All students were given the opportunity to share, which helped the class learn from each other, create a safe environment, and build mathematical confidence and strategies. Lastly, I felt that if I could help students gain confidence in their mathematical skills, they would enjoy math more. I believe this will help students overcome future mathematical challenges they face.

Culturally Responsive Teaching

I worked to foster an equitable and accessible learning environment by providing sentence stems for all students. Students have different abilities and experiences verbalizing their thinking, and I did not want this to prevent anyone from sharing. Sentence stems provided support for all students to participate. Information was also presented through discussion, writing, and drawings which provided multiple ways for students to take in content.

Additionally, I included multiple perspectives in our learning by giving all students a voice. During number talks, all answers were accepted. We created a safe environment where everyone had the chance to share without judgment because the main goal was to learn together, from each other.

Lastly, students were given a variety of ways to share their thinking. They could share by showing how many strategies they found with their fingers, talk through strategies with a partner, and share whole group.

Differentiation to Meet Student Needs

To differentiate instruction and enhance individual student learning, I provided different support based on the varying abilities in my classroom. For example, I pulled a group of students who were below level in math to practice number talks in a smaller setting. This helped build confidence in their mathematical skills and discourse. Additionally, these students could use a whiteboard to visually see their thinking which relieved some of their anxiety when sharing whole group.

Furthermore, to support and challenge all students, I would check with different students each day during think time. We would discuss their strategy, and I would encourage them privately to think of another or help them problem solve if they were stuck.

Lastly, I differentiated pre/post tests to better assess the wide range of math ability in my classroom. Some students needed to grow their mathematical skills while others needed extension. As a responsive educator, I realized that they are not all in the same place, so they cannot all be assessed the same way.

Collaboration with Stakeholders

I collaborated with various internal stakeholders such as my grade level team, principal, and instructional facilitator throughout this project. My grade level team and principal were pivotal in helping me locate resources for my research and instruction. Additionally, I worked with my principal to ensure adherence to district research policies. Lastly, our instructional facilitator helped me develop an anecdotal note-taking form for recording my observations during number talks. These internal stakeholders within my building allowed me to provide the most purposeful instruction to my students.

I also worked with external stakeholders including my mentor, cohort, and graduate studies professors. My mentor helped me conduct the research within my classroom each week. My mentor also assisted me with modeling examples and non-examples of mathematical partner talk. I collaborated with my cohort to determine best practice for my goal and how to use the data that was collected. My professors helped me to better my action research by suggesting various instructional strategies and providing me with the resources to continue research independently.

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