Melissa: Week 1

I am posting late.  My first week teaching and doing number talks in my classroom was last week.  I faced many challenges and a few successes.  To begin, I am teaching 3 "regular" Geometry classes (composed of 10th-12th graders) and 2 "Freshman" Geometry classes.  Basically, the freshman classes are supposed to lead to the advanced math track with the students taking Calculus their senior year.
Introducing Number Talks
I decided to introduce number talks, to my students, as a way to develop their ability to think flexibly and efficiently about numbers.  I told the students that number talks are a way for them to perform mental math in a way that is more efficient (we talked about what efficient means).  I decided to tell the students this because the school I work at does not have a culture of accepting multiple methods in math classrooms.  Math is taught VERY traditionally.  Therefore, I wanted the students to buy into doing number talks, and I believed the introduction I gave was a way of doing so.  
I also gave my students two goals.
1. Actively listen.
2. Really explain what you were thinking.  I told them that it may seem obvious, but we need everyone in the class to understand and be convinced of our methods.
Basically, I am trying to get the students to see the importance in having a variety of strategies and approaches.
Reflection
My intention was to do two number talks in the first week of school.  I was going to start with two dot talks for the same reasons that Tara mentioned.  I wanted the students to understand the structure and to build their confidence to share their thoughts.  I did the first dot talk on Tuesday in every class.  The number of people whose ideas where shared ranged from 2-5 students.  Also, I felt like the students were super hesitant to do "quiet thumbs." A good number of students in every class half-heartedly put their fists to their chests and some refused to.  My guess is that quiet thumbs are not "cool" so the students are hesitant to get involved in something that seems elementary.  Also, the students seemed content to hear a small number of strategies.  I think this may be related to the math culture at the high school.  It has not been emphasized that math consists of different ways of thinking.  This is going to be something that I need to create in my classes.  So, for the second number talk, I only did it in one class.  The results will similar to those I saw on the first number talk. Finally, I have not had a consistent roster in any of my classes.  I receive new students and lose current students every day.  I was told that this will continue to happen until the end of the third week of school. Tuesday of my second week, I completely lost my first period "regular" geometry class and was given another teacher's freshman geometry class.  This has made it difficult for me to establish norms because I have new students every day.  Therefore, I have decided to wait to do number talks until the 4th week of school.  That is when the schedules will be finalized and I will have consistent rosters.  When I start back up during the 4th week I am going to start with a two digit addition problem.  My students number sense seems to be lower than the students at Fremont HS.  They really struggle with negative numbers, basic algebra, etc, so I think number talks will REALLY help my students.  I am excited to fully integrate number talks into my class!!  Oh, and, another teacher observed one of my number talks and she said "It was really neat."  She asked if she could see a pile pattern task I was doing, but she came too early and she got to see the number talk as well.  Hopefully other teachers get curious and want to do them :)

Wow!  That all sounds really negative.  I do think that the number talks went well in a few ways.  First, the students did have different ways of seeing the dots and all of the classes there was more than one student that shared.  Also, the day after the number talk, a student in one of the freshman geometry classes wanted to share his way of thinking about a problem (which was different than another student's way), so I felt like he valued multiple methods.
Questions   
I am wondering how I get the students to buy into using the quiet thumbs.  I explained the reasoning behind doing it, but it did not seem to be enough.  Is it normal for students to resist it right at the beginning?  I want to stick with using the quiet thumbs because I believe it is the best way, but I also want the students to fully participate.