Sometimes, my math classroom can feel like it’s all teacher-directed instruction. I’m guilty of being the main talker in my classroom – I have so much content to get through and so little time! Plus, I don’t want my students talking about math strategies incorrectly, and many of my students want to sit quietly and let someone else do the talking. Sound familiar?
But one thing my old teaching professors would say keeps popping up in my mind – “the person doing the talking is doing the learning”? Well, I want that to be my students, not me! So, I’ve made it a priority to find easy ways to get my students talking about this year, and wanted to share some of my favorites! Here are some ways to prioritize student talk in your classroom while still maintaining control!
Math Escape Rooms
Nothing gets students talking quite like competition! I love using math escape rooms as an activity to focus my students’ energy before a break or as a review at the end of a unit or after a break from school! Working in partners, students solve challenges that lead them to decode a secret word or number. Naturally, they have to talk about strategies we’ve learned in class, check their notes, and correct each other! Want to learn more about using escape rooms in your math class? Check out my blog post about it here!
100 Numbers to Get Students Talking Activity
The 100 Number Challenge is a favorite of many teachers at the beginning of the school year (read the original post by Sara Van Der Werf here). To summarize, students are placed in groups and need to find and highlight the numbers 1 through 100 consecutively in a short amount of time. Students will talk to help each other. Eventually, we talk about patterns students are noticing in number placement which helps them work more effectively. When I’ve done this activity with my students, they have SO much fun and are SO engaged! It’s a great activity to demonstrate the power of working in groups and to set norms or expectations around group work.
Number Talks
I’ve been using number talks twice a week as my warm-up in my middle school resource room math class, and my students really like them! I show students a prompt of some kind, whether it’s a mental math addition problem, a real-life picture of items in arrays, or even an equation. Students think and explain how they got their answer. Students learn different strategies from each other. In total, this warm-up routine takes us about 10 minutes, and we share about 3 or 4 similar problems. If students share a wrong answer, I don’t tell them they are wrong. I ask students to share their strategies, and students get “convinced” by their peers or find their mistakes!
How do you get students talking in your math classroom? I can’t wait to hear about it in the comments!
