After 10 years with the Scott Foresman math series, elementary schools in the Mahomet-Seymour School District are piloting a strategy called Number Talks to align with Common Core standards, which became mandatory in Illinois this year.
Although Illinois adopted the Common Core in 2010, curriculum writers and textbook companies have not developed classroom-ready materials which reflect the standards which emphasize “depth over breadth.”
The district worked with Randy and Sue Pippen of Pippen Consulting in the spring of 2013 to learn about how Number Talk strategies align with the Common Core.
“When Randy and Sue Pippen came to talk to us a couple of times, they highly recommended Number Talks as a portion of the way you can meet the Common Core,” Sangamon Principal Mark Cabutti said. “It’s certainly not a stand-alone curriculum, though.”
The district will not adopt a long-term curriculum until they are certain the material will meet all the Common Core and PARCC Assessment standards.
Sangamon supplements Number Talks with another series they are piloting called Go Math. They also purchased a consumable workbook for the first and second grade students mid-summer.
Lincoln Trail teachers have used an online series called Engage New York. While the New York-based curriculum follows the Common Core standards, many Mahomet-Seymour teachers have had to write some math curriculum this year.
Fourth grade teachers have also piloted the Go Math series.
While assessments are built into the Engage New York series, teachers and district staff are anxious to see how the standards will be included in the PARCC assessment, which will replace the ISAT test next year.
Mahomet-Seymour School District was chosen to pilot the PARCC assessment in grades 5, 7, 11 and in Algebra I and Geometry this spring.Not all classrooms within these grades will participate.
While the PARCC assessment standards remain to be seen, it will mirror the Common Core standards in that it will require students to go beyond simply answering the question correctly by showing the process they used to complete the problem.
“(Number Talks) is about getting them to think about and look at numbers, and understand how numbers work together; how our brains group into patterns in order to make it more efficient to learn or ‘do math,’” first grade teacher Cheryl Mitchell said.
During math lessons, Mitchell encourages her students to look at numbers efficiently. When solving a problem, students not only give their answer, but defend how they solved the problem. Mitchell gives other students an opportunity to agree, disagree or share their strategy.
“Math problems are going to get harder, but if you can make tens in your brain, this will be easier,” Mitchell told students.
The practice of making tens is used and built upon in the K-5 math curriculum throughout the Mahomet-Seymour School District.
“We were amazed at the beginning of the year at how many different ways kids think about how to solve a certain equation,” Cabutti said. “But then to be able to defend it was a new piece for them.”
Moving away from the traditional regurgitation of number facts was hard for teachers, too. Several district teachers, including Mitchell and fifth grade teachers Kari Calcagno and Sara Dyer, have mentored each other throughout the year.
Teachers gathered for in-service training in the fall to focus on Number Talks. Within each building, K-5 teachers have gathered on a regular basis to talk through strategies, problems and strengths within each grade level. Number Talks are a part of the Sangamon agenda every couple weeks.
“This first year we felt that was really important to find regular times where our staff would meet together and talk about what’s going on,” Cabutti said. “That’s sometimes more powerful than having an outside rep coming in and sometimes overwhelming you with information. Whereas you do want to trust the professionals in your building to dialogue with each other on what’s working and what’s not working.”
“It’s amazing for me to sit in on team time, and just listen because you can really tell the teachers are giving it a really honest effort,” he said. “The things that they are sharing with their colleagues about the things their students are doing; you can tell it’s being implemented with fidelity.”
First grade began the school year by reviewing kindergarten Number Talk standards. Second grade began with first grade material. Third through fifth grade students began with second grade material, and worked their up to their grade level.
Cabutti and Calcagno said while Number Talks present a completely different way of looking at math, students are still being taught traditional strategies alongside critical thinking skills.
“Parents need to be reassured that computation and problem solving are still a part of the Core,” Cabutti said. “It’s still there, it’s just expanded a bit to include things like mental math and being able to defend. We are teaching students to think on their feet to solve problems in their head.”
Calcagno said while students may have gone through the steps of carrying and borrowing, they often did not understand the strategies behind what they were doing. This year, she has seen students not only compute the correct answer, but also comprehend the math process.
“They still have the same answer, they just have a different way of getting there,” Calcagno said. “That’s what Common Core does; it lets (the students) experiment and find what works for them. They want them to think outside of the box.”
Because Number Talks requires students to talk about numbers, draw pictures or defend their process, teachers are also learning how to evaluate their comprehension on an individual basis. Mitchell said she has had to streamline the classroom conversations a bit because enthusiastic students have a lot of ideas to share.
Her remedy is to teach students how to think, talk and compute efficiently.
In lessons which often rely on group conversation, teachers are also finding ways to evaluate quiet students.
“While some of them are quiet, I’ve watched their faces be very in tune to what they’re seeing and start to make sense of it,” she said. “I do see transfer of that information. I also believe for the high (math students) who just “know,” it has helped them be able to explain it, and have a better grasp of number sense, which is what they must have before we do anything else.”
The Pippens assured teachers and administrators at the beginning of the year these new standards would pay dividends down the road because as students talk about numbers, teachers will be able to see how students put numbers together or if they are able to at all.
“You and I use mental math as a strategy,” Cabutti said. “We learned to do that through life, but teaching students how to use that as a strategy from a young age will only add to their repertoire.”
Calcagno and Dyer are also working with Mahomet-Seymour Junior High to implement some of the same Number Talk techniques and strategies at that level.
Calcagno identified LearnZillion and Khan Academy as resources parents can use to help their child with the new math strategies.
