Tara: Weeks 10-12

10th grade

During these next few weeks, I continued with multiplication for my 10th grade students, but crossed into double-digit numbers and even some triple digit multiplication. 

It was interesting to see how the students reacted the first time I put up a double-digit multiplication problem. You could literally hear sighs in the classroom! However, as I continued to do them, I got less and less push back on the difficulty. What I found is that the students who offered their answers were able to transfer strategies from the earlier number talks to these more difficult multiplication problems.  

One struggle that I still have is that I believe a few students are really struggling with their basic math facts and this is seriously inhibiting their ability to participate in the number talks. I can think of at least 5 students who do not have their basic multiplication facts memorized (like 6x8). I'm not quite sure how to have them still participate fully during this time and at the same time continue to push the other students in the class to think more deeply about multiplication. 

Another thing that I ran into during these number talks was that students were not distributing when they were breaking up numbers. For example, the number talk 15 x 13. There were some students who wanted to break up the 15 into (10 +5) and the 13 into (10+3) and then they wanted to multiply. However, they were not distributing when they multiplied so they were only performing these operations: 10 x 10 + 5 x 3. 

This brought up a good discussion in each class and I was able to introduce the area model for them to see why we had to distribute. 

Below are some of the number talks with two digit multiplication. 

1st period:

2nd period:

4th period:

1st period:

4th period:

I am planning to stay on multiplication throughout the rest of the semester, however am transitioning to using money to have my students think about bigger numbers. For example, I will do problems like $1.99 x 6.
I am hoping that they will use strategies they have already seen to think about these types of multiplication problems and I am hoping they will also come up with new strategies because of the different context of money.

Melissa: Weeks 11 and 12

I started to see a little more success during these weeks.  There was more participation from students that do not typically share.  The students seem to be gaining confidence and there were even positive remarks from the students.

First Period: All Freshman Geometry.  This class was given to me several weeks into the school year so we are still working on providing other methods besides the traditional algorithm.

Second Period: 10th-12th grade Geometry.  This class is one of my more challenging classes.  The class is predominately male and it is not "cool" to have high academic status.  So, assigning competence  has proved itself to be challenging.  Specifically, David F. has very interesting and valuable ways of thinking, but he tends to act out.  So, I was pleasantly surprised to see David volunteer his method.  Luis and Guadalupe rarely volunteer their ideas during whole class discussions, as well.  And, Garrette regularly shares and he has high academic status, but he was not listening during the number talk and he shared Guadalupe's strategy.  Hence the "Not paying attention" note.

5th Period: 9th Grade Geometry.

 6th Period: 10th-12th Grade Geometry.  This class' culture is very similar to my second period's.  Again, I was pleasantly surprised by the students that shared their thinking.  Valentin is an EL senior student that seriously struggles in math.  While he did show the traditional algorithm, I was happy that he was the first one to share his ideas.  Amanda is also a senior and she has an IEP.  And, Denzell is a junior that has high social status.  I haven't done number talks with this class because they are my most challenging class.  I have six students with IEPs in this class and the classroom management has been a constant struggle.  After this number talk, several students mentioned that they had never thought about "borrowing" like Denzell and Amanda did.  Most of the students did the traditional algorithm when I polled them, but they were very enthusiastic about seeing the other strategies.  After this, I decided that this class needs to do number talks just as much as the other classes.  And, when I did a number talk the following week, more students raised their hands for methods besides the traditional algorithm.

Looking forward, I am going to start percents.  I am anticipating more challenges, but I am going to remain positive.  Because the high school I work at serves a very rural and low income demographic, I am still thinking about how I am create a number talk that will build on their experiences (like we did last year with the milkshakes - my students do not go off campus for lunch and the town they live in is in the middle of the desert so there are not really any common restaurants that I can use).  I am going to talk to another teacher to see if there is something he thinks I can use.  I will update on how it goes!