Kindergarten and 1st Grade: Workshop Day 2

“Mathematicians Talk and Listen Cooperatively…”
Connection / Yesterday, we discussed that Math is all around us and we are ALL mathematicians! Today, we are going to talk about how mathematicians should talk and listen during the Math Workshop time.
Teach / *** This lesson will particularly focus on Standards for Mathematical Practices # 3 “Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others” and #6 “Attend to precision.”
The teacher may need to look closely at these for Kindergarten or 1st grade, prior to the lesson, and be familiar with the language of the standards.
Today, we are going to talk about what our Math Workshop will “sound” like this year. We are going think about two questions:
  1. How can we be good listeners?
  2. What do mathematicians say?
Introduce the Speaking and Listening Expectations:
  • Talk with the students about the actions of a goodlistener.A good listener listens and tries to understand their partner. They look at the person talking and visualize or picture what the speaker said in their head, etc.
** The teacher may decide to create an anchor chart of what good listeners do as this lesson progresses so that students can re-visit it throughout the year. **
Not only do we have to be good listeners as mathematicians, we have to sound like mathematicians when we communicate our ideas to our partner. When we are able to talk about our math with our partner we will be able to learn from each other’s ideas and thinking. When we are listening and speaking about our math we will do something called revoicing. When we are revoicing you might hear something like this:
  • “What I heard you say was….”
  • “You’re saying…”
  • “My idea is the same as ____ because….”
  • “My idea is different than ___ because….”
You might choose to create an anchor chart to remind students of what math talk will sound like.
Possible anchor chart below:

I am going to give you a math problem to complete. I want you to really think about how you solve your problem and show or represent your math in as many ways as you can. You may choose to use symbols, pictures, etc. When you are finished solving your problem I will choose one or two of you to help me model what this will sound like for the rest of the class.
As students are working through the problem walk around and listen for trends in student thinking. Select a student to model for the class with you what mathematicians sound like when they share their thinking.
Have student share his math reasoning. Model Revoicing (Teacher repeats exactly what a student has said as student shares.)
  • “What I heard you say was….”
  • “You’re saying…”
  • “My idea is the same as ____ because….”
  • “My idea is different than ___ because….”

Active Engagement / With your partner I want you to practice your math talk by listening to your partners ideas and then revoicing just like ___ and I did. Let’s begin by Partner #1 sharing his/her ideas while the other partner listens to understand Partner #1’s thinking.
Allow time for Partner #1 to share and then allow time for Partner #2 to revoice Partner #1’s ideas without judging, adapting or commenting about the correctness or sensibility of the ideas. Partner #1 can clarify as needed. (Set the time according to the complexity of the question/task and student backgrounds.)
Repeat until all partners have revoiced and reported.
Have partners end with a discussion of ways their ideas are mathematically the same and/or different.
**This kind of talk will take some time to develop in your classroom. Remind students of what good listeners do often and encourage them to use the sentence starters in their conversations with each other. As time progresses it will seem more natural.
Link / Today and every day, I want you to practice being a good listener when your group or partner is talking, and I also want you to “sound” like a mathematician when you are talking.

Watch for:

  • As students are talking in groups, note the students that are using math language. Note which students seem to be really listening, and being respectful to one another.
  • How comfortable are students with revoicing? Who needs more support or modeling?
  • Which students seem confident in “diving” into the math?
  • Which students seem reluctant?

Share Time:

Let a group or individual share their thinking on the problem that they solved. Remind students to be good listeners, and let students rate themselves with a “thumbs up/ thumbs down” on whether they were good listeners, and whether they sounded like good listeners”.

*Thank you to Allison Funk & Keri Smith, Instructional Coaches at Lyman Hall Elementary for their hard work on developing these lessons.