As a new teacher, I completely missed a critical aspect of making classroom life sustainable, equitable, and rich: Math Talk Routines.
When I started teaching I was so eager to do work so exciting and interesting, I had come from routine jobs like farmwork, brewing beer, cooking, housecleaning, and waitressing. What a thrill it was to have a job that was less repetitive. And I nearly wiped myself out making every day special.
Once I shifted from chasing novelty, routines like Number Talks, Math Congress, and Card Sorts allowed me to divert my energy from inventing new ways to teach. Instead I spent my time thinking about my students’ strengths, and about what they needed next. I pretty much cut my planning hours in half.
For students, routines made my teaching predictable. This meant my multilingual learners understood how to participate because structures repeated themselves. They could learning the routine and then get on with learning the math. And my students who had experienced trauma didn’t have to wonder, “What is teacher-lady going to do next?”
And were we bored? No way! Great math talk routines open students up to more possibilities while providing structure that allows them to think for themselves. A great routine offers multiple pathways to solutions, supports students in knowing their answers make sense, gives students a variety of ways to access and communicate about mathematics, and provides space for nonverbal communication and think time.
Here are a few of my favorites and where I learned them:
Number Talks: Ruth Parker and Cathy Humphreys
Math Congress: Catherine Fosnot
Card Sorts: MathShell, my friend Christina Charney and OpenUp Mathematics
Fractions Talks: The Mathematics Education Collaborative
What is your favorite Math Talk routine?