How to Plan For Purposeful Conversations In Math

Talk is not cheap.

It may be if it is not purposeful, thoughtful, useful. But it can be powerful, meaningful, and a link to making sense of things... even math.

In Regie Routman's compelling tome, Literacy Essentials, she wades into Listening, Speaking , and Questioning as a source to "elevate teaching and learning" (149). After seeing how important it is these past few years while teaching high school math to have conversation as part of the instructional equation, I know that I am going to have to do a lot explicit modeling and teaching this next year to help 6th graders have a healthy, usable framework for how to have math discussions.

That will be a lot of work and a lot of fun! I think it will set them up to continue to grow as thinkers and problem solvers. They will have the tools to handle talking about tuned mass dampers and the world's tallest buildings, about icosahedrons and Fuller projections, and how to solve ratio problems.

On pages 153-154, Routman pegs how to promote and have "significant conversations."

* Students today need "demonstrations and practice on how and why meaningful conversation is an artful necessity for optimal living and learning" (153).

* This is a "most important skill" (154).

* Our role? "Simulate, clarify and moderate the conversations so students do most of the talking" (154).

* These conversations should "promote debate, curiosity... thoughtful questioning... valuing multiple perspectives" (154).

* Regie again says on 154, "...if we want students to invest in complex thinking and sharing of ideas, they must believe their voices matter."

Making this happen requires deliberate and intentional planning. Mrs. Routman gives several tools and steps in her "Take Action" section. I want to highlight one of the tools that speaks the loudest to me on this read. She says to "ensure your students and you have the tools to make productive discussions possible" (156) and then cites Talk Moves to Support Classroom Discussion from a book by Elham Kazemi and Allison Hintz. These "moves" are discussion stems for various tasks within thoughtful and purposeful discussion. For example, this stem - “so you're saying..." - can be used for helping frame and paraphrase what another student has said.

Sure, it seems simple. But for conversations to be civil and thoughtful, these types of discussion prompts have to be rehearsed in context. That may be a little forced at first. Awkward. Maybe even a little uncomfortable. The kids will need to see me model it. They will need prompts in their hands so they can practice. They will most likely need to listen in on each other to offer feedback. It may be emotional.

If they have to disagree or correct some math missteps, it almost certainly will be. Harry O'Malley, in a recent article, suggests that I could even plan for the emotions that I want them to have. What if I introduce, as he suggests, music in the background during a practice conversation - music that was specifically chosen to evoke a more predictable emotion?

Whatever my methods, I once again come away from Mrs. Routman's excellent book about literacy chock-full of ideas about how to apply some of those core learnings in my 6th-grade math classroom. That's not only something worth thinking about, it's something worth talking about.