Recently I had Dr. Cory Bennett share with us about Reasoning Talks (Number Talks that focus on Reasoning) and how to use them in the Middle School classroom. So many of your responded asking for more information and I am finally here to share that with you.
Some of the highlights I took from Cory’s session at NCTM Annual in San Antonio are that:
- When developing a reasoning talk we must switch from just computational and help our students develop reasoning skills when processing through the problem.
- We don’t always want an answer right away. Most of the time with reasoning talks we truly want students to create a conversation about the methods for solving and WHY they think that.
Developing Reasoning Talks
When we as the facilitator of these reasoning talks sit down to plan them out ahead of time (critical step to do) we must ask ourselves, “How am I going to make connections to what my students are already bringing to the table?”
Understanding the prior knowledge of our students will help us create better, and more engaging, reasoning talks with quality probing and clarifying questions. Think ahead to what answer you are wanting from your students and work backwards to determine the question that you need to ask to get that answer.
Using the template that Dr. Bennett has created for us, these guidelines that I have added (see photo) are to help you in your creation.
Examples of Reasoning Talks
As further example for developing reasoning talks in your classroom, I have developed three different examples for you. The first of which is aligned to standards for solving real world problems that involve multiplying fractions by a whole number.
The second example that I have created for you involve solving real world problems that involves using variables to write equations and then solve them based on given information.
And then the final example that I want to show you involves determining area and then finding fractional portions of that area and what is remaining- talk about MULTI-STEP problem!
And with that I hope that these examples can help you implement Reasoning Talks in your classroom. Remember, building communication about what they are learning is one of the goals as that helps them to explain their thinking behind their math. Spend some time this summer to think about how that you can implement these into your classroom for the coming year and if you have any questions, feel free to ask because I’m here and will listen!
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This is the direction I would like to take my 5th graders next year. Thank you for the foot work and inspiration! I am unable to download the planning template, however. Any suggestions?
Roberta,
When you click on the link it will take you to be able to download the zip file. Once you have downloaded the zip file you will need to find it on your computer and extract it to find all of the files inside.
I have also included the example files within the folder. Hope this helps and I would love to see what you create!
Jennifer
I would recommend greater clarity on the goals and the questions. The goals are to help the teacher stay focused and should really be written for them, not the students. That is, these kinds of discussions are open to how students think about the mathematics so we need to have a beacon, or focus, to guide ourselves (the teachers) so we avoid the discourse “rabbit holes,” (think Alice in Wonderland kind of rabbit holes). As for the questions, I try to (generally) avoid “how” questions as this can be interpreted by students as an algorithm, or a recipe for doing something, and thus their responses are often procedural and lack mathematical reasoning, which is the purpose of reasoning talks.
Cory,
Thanks for some clarification as I was going off my notes and what not from NCTM.
When it comes to asking “how” questions I think they can still be done as long as they are not the guiding force and rather they are supplementary questions that help guide students along through their thinking.
I love how we can discuss an ever-evolving creation of new ideas to use in our classrooms!
Jennifer
Do you have a website or book?
Tunisha,
Dr. Bennett’s guest post is linked in the post and it has his links to his website. Hope this helps!
Jennifer