Creativity in Math

Each and every week, it becomes more evident that all of us who have been led to believe were not math people, feel this way because of how we have been taught math.  In our video this week, it is explained that most people are not introduced to math in the right way.  We are taught to view math as being all about the procedures, methods and rules.  BEDMAS is a great example of this. 

How we multiply is a great example as well, we all know the traditional way of pen to paper:   

                                                                      12
                                                                    x45

With this type of equation, students were expected to follow all the steps and show these steps to 'show their thinking' in order to get full marks.

We now know that this way of doing math doesn't provide any creativity.  Math is not about the procedures and steps, but rather is about critical thinking and creativity.  Introducing math to our students in this way is the best way to build life long learners that can apply their math skills to their everyday lives.  Math/number talks is one way towards this form of learning.

I was only introduced to number talks in my grade 7/8 placement class.  When we first started doing them I had realized that my way of thinking was very traditional.  I could not get out of that pen to paper way of thinking, but this was not an effective way to think about numbers flexibly.  Only with practice did I start to think about problems in different ways, which has helped me in my everyday life.

For instance, at work when counting inventory I was able to do quicker math when counting 6 cases of 12 pops.  This is math I would initially be doing on the back of my inventory papers 12 over 6 and cross multiply- or as much as I hate to admit it, even writing 12 on top of each other 6 times and adding.  Number talks helped me to visualize numbers in different ways to make me a more efficient worker.  It is for this reason that I just love the idea of number talks in the classroom.

The following is a video to show how number talks look in the class room.

 A couple of things I would like to point out about this video.  After seeing how successful number talks were in my 7/8 placement class, I was eager to share this with my new associate teacher.  She had never heard of the idea, but instantly loved it when we tried it with the grade 2/3's.  

In the video, the teacher eliminates the notion of raising your hand when you have the answer.  This is important within the math classroom.  It eliminates the discouraging aspect of math when some students can come to an answer quicker than others.  When students show their brain is thinking with a closed fist on their chest, it allows the teacher to see when everyone is ready, while minimizing the rest of the classes vision about who has an answer or not.  Further, it encourages students to keep thinking.  This is where students grow those critical thinking skills.  Students keep lifting fingers to show how many different ways they came to the answer.  Again, this is done in a non invasive way wherein, only the teacher can really see how many different ways students have come up with.

Next, the teacher allows student choice by having more than 1 answer on the board.  This way students can choose which number they wan to defend.  What I think is important about this is that maybe the answer is not right, but the process to how the student got their can bring up effective learning opportunities for the rest of the class.

Trying number talks in the classroom can be such a powerful motivator and move towards creative thinking in math.