Reflection
Impact on Learning
Through number talks, I saw students grow in many ways. They began to verbalize and use the connections and patterns between numbers and various math concepts. Students learned many mental addition and subtraction strategies and gained the confidence to apply them to more challenging problems. This knowledge and confidence helped students verbalize and share their thinking. Number talks pushed students to think flexibly, allowing them to solve math problems accurately and efficiently. These changes were seen through assessments and classroom observations. Computational fluency and number sense scores increased. Additionally, students became eager to share and discuss their thinking as a class not only during math but across subject areas.
Professional Growth
This action research project reminded me how important it is to be a lifelong learner. From initial research, to mid-instruction adjustments, to reflecting on what I would change, I had to remain flexible and ready to learn throughout. Preparing and implementing a project of this size has helped me grow as an educator in many ways. First, I became more confident in my math instruction and ability to meet student needs. I learned the value of research and collaboration as I would not have been able to implement number talks if I did not research best practice and brainstorm with stakeholders. Additionally, this has helped me foster a growth mindset in myself, because while there were many positives of this project, there were also challenges I had to overcome. I will carry the instructional strategies, data collection methods, and life lessons I learned through this project into future instruction.
Future Instruction
Number talks were provided as supplemental instruction outside of the math block, which resulted in occasional time restraints. Number talks are meant to be around 15 minutes, but they initially took longer because students had to learn the routine and expectations. Then, some days and weeks were busier than others, leaving an extra 15 minutes hard to find. We made it work by fitting them in during bell-work, but in the future I will make changes to how and when I implement number talks.
First, I plan to align number talks with our math curriculum so we can have them during the math block. Number talks would serve as a great review or anticipatory set during scheduled math instruction. They will help students think of and practice grade level math topics in a non-traditional way while also building their ability to engage in academic discourse. Additionally, I will start them at the beginning of the year so it becomes another part of our math routine, saving instructional time in the long run.
Aligning number talks with district math curriculum will also make it easier to have small group number talks. As mentioned in my action plan, students who needed extra support in number talks also needed extra support with curriculum math concepts, often forcing me to pick between the two. When in alignment, students will be able to engage in meaningful number talks while also receiving the support they need to learn new concepts and gain confidence in their mathematical skills and discourse.
Lastly, I found the academic discourse that is central to number talks incredibly powerful to student growth and collaboration. In future instruction, I plan to more explicitly extend the same meaningful discourse across all subjects to help students think about concepts in different ways as well as learn from one another.