Number Talk are a powerful classroom routine which increases student computational fluency and number sense.
A Number Talk takes about 10-15 minutes and help students develop their number sense and teach them that they have mathematical ideas worth listening to and that they can make sense of calculations in their own ways. Especially for adult education students, many of whom received a fragile understanding of number and calculations from their prior education. The basic routine is students do a mental calculation without using paper. Students explain their thinking and teachers create visual representations of that thinking.
MATH TALKS is thoughtful collection of Number Talk prompts from Fawn Nguyen that includes a few sample student responses for each. Click on the url link above to read the CollectEdNY review to get started.
Here are some other resources for exploring number talks with your students:
- OER Commons resources on Number Talks
- Kristen Acosta has a collection of Number Talk Images for inspiring great math discussions.
- Berkeley Everett created adaptable slides so teachers can make customized number talk images using fruit, nuts, and pastries. Custom Number Talk Images
- Pam Harris facilitates a weekly slow chat on Twitter called #MathStratChat. Her collection of computation problems are thoughtfully designed and make for rich number talks. and have the added bonus of multiple approaches.
