Ep 1: Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics in Kindergarten

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Hello and welcome to Making Number Sense Makes Sense, a podcast for elementary teachers,

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specifically early elementary teachers, looking to really make an impact in the number sense

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of their students. Welcome back to Making Number Sense Makes Sense, a podcast for early

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elementary teachers hoping to really make a difference in the number sense of their students.

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Today's topic is, I would say, kind of a hot topic in math education if there is such a thing.

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It is building thinking classrooms. Now this book, I feel like, took the Facebook math teachers

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groups by storm. I'm hearing about it everywhere. I heard about it everywhere, and I read it over

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the summer and I was like, what is so exciting about this book? Like, what is it that is making

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this so popular? And I have to admit, I was a little skeptical because it's K to 12. And if you

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are a early elementary teacher, then you know that when things say K to 12, they are rarely actually

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K to 12, because it takes a special person to understand how to teach little people and not

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everybody's got it. Not everybody knows what it takes to do that. So like I said, skeptical. Is

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this actually going to work in kindergarten? So the main premise of this book is that a lot of

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times when students are presented with some kind of math problem, they're not actually problem

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solving. What they're doing is mimicking behaviors that look like they're problem solving, but

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they're not actually problem solving. That's for a variety of reasons. They may have been conditioned

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to understand that the teacher's going to eventually give them the answer if they don't try. And you

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know, trying can be a lot harder than not trying. So a lot of times kids get comfortable just kind

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of sitting back and making it look like they're busy and not actually being busy. This is an aside.

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But I remember in a high school physics class, like we, me and my friend were supposed to be

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building an engine or something along those lines. And we were definitely not building an engine.

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Building was not our forte. So he and I were just talking to each other about anything but building

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an engine. And a lot of times when a teacher comes over to students who are not doing the right thing,

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they'll be like, Oh, oh, and then try to make it look they're busy. We were not those people. We are

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not going to do that. It's like, we kind of looked at her and we're like, Sorry, we're definitely

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not doing what we should be doing. And she was like, Well, I'm glad that you didn't, you know,

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try to make it look like you were doing something that you shouldn't. And he's without a missing a

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beat goes, Well, what you see is what you get. And I will remember that forever, hilarious. But a lot

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of times with kids, it's the same. What you see is what you get. If it looks like they're not really

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working. A lot of times they're not actually working. So the idea of building thinking

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classrooms is really to move around that and put the kids in a situation where they can't do those

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typical student behaviors that they have to really go outside of the box because the environment that

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they're in and the way that math problems are presented changes. When you're taken out of your

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element and your norm, then you kind of have to react in different ways. And that's exactly what

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happens with this building thinking classrooms framework. And the results that I've been getting

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has been amazing with my students. They asked me, Oh, are we going to do a task today? Are we going

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to work on the whiteboards today? And they don't ask me questions. They get to the point where

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they're like, All right, got it. I'm good to go. Let's try and work on this. And they just get right

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to it. They don't ask me for help. Usually the only thing I'm really doing is having the opportunity

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to listen to all of their great thinking and support any conflict in partners. But usually,

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there's really not any conflict. So let's dive into exactly how I set it up. There are three main

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things that you need to get started with building thinking classrooms, you by no means have to read

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the whole book before you dive right in, you can, but you definitely don't have to. So the big three

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that you need are you need your students to be working in random groups. So for K to two, that's

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partners. And for older grades, that would be a group of three. You need some kind of vertical,

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non permanent surface. So that could be dry race board, or a dry race sleeve, and something to

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hang them up around the room so that kids are standing while they're working. And the dry race

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marker makes it easy to race. And students are more willing to take risks. And the third thing is

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that as a teacher, when you're circulating, you're trying to be deliberately less helpful in a kind

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way. You don't want to just kind of look at your kids and do nothing with the younger kids. But you

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do kind of want to reiterate that you heard them and just kind of encourage them like I think that

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you can do it. I definitely think that you can figure this out and kind of walk away and see,

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see what happens. So those are your three big things that you need to get started. So the first

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thing is the vertical non permanent surface. My school was recently renovated. And almost all of

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my walls are whiteboards. But I realized that that is not the case for everybody. So if I did not

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have the whiteboards already, I would definitely be making use of dry race leaves, the type of tasks

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that I'm doing in kindergarten often require something that the kids are working with, not just

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off you go. It really depends. But a lot of times I'll bring in other things to kind of support

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their thinking. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in the task section. The next thing

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is random groups. So I use these little color coded cards, and the kids can pick a card. And then

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they find the person who matches their color and then they go to their workspace, a link to several

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posts about this as well as those color cards. You can kind of see what I'm talking about. You can

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also get them for free at the link in the show notes. I've also used computer generated groups.

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I like classroom screen a lot. But something interesting that I noticed when I first started

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is the kids did not respond as well to the computer choosing a group as them physically

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choosing a card. I don't know if they thought that I was still in charge of it somehow and I

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rigged it. I don't know. But they seem to accept it more when they were the one who got to choose

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their card and their partner was their partner. At this point, they're okay with either but still

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prefer picking their own card. A note about the partners though, it did take them a while to

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understand that their groups will always be random. They'll always be with somebody different.

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Sometimes they'll work with the same person. Sometimes they'll work with different people,

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but it is completely random. The good thing about that is then they got to the point where

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they weren't so attached to who their partner was and also to understand that everybody in the

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classroom has something important to contribute and as a mathematician you'll grow by learning

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and hearing what other people have to say. They might be a little disappointed that they're not

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working with their best friend, but they can still work with any other classmate to accomplish the

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goal of solving the problem or attempting to solve the problem. Like I said, because I'm in

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kindergarten, the kids don't have a ton of school norms that they're breaking through. So I wouldn't

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say that I had students asking me for help often in this setting because it kind of felt different

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to them than just kind of your run-of-the-mill activity, but when they did ask for help, I would

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usually, I asked them if they had talked to their partner. I also encouraged them to ask another group

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what they were doing or what ideas they had and to see if that would help them out so that they

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really kind of saw other students as areas where they could get ideas and they could get support,

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not just me as a teacher. And the students who were getting asked to help another student

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didn't feel like they were copying off them because they were helping. They were asking for

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help. They're like, oh yeah, I'll help you. And the good thing about most kids, but especially

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kindergartners, is they really want to help. They want to be helpful. So if someone is asking for

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help, they're definitely into that. Are you with me so far? Great. Now jumping right into what

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they're actually doing once they get to their vertical non-permanent surface. The book suggests

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starting with a non-curricular task or something that doesn't necessarily have to do with

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math or the concept that you're working on, just to kind of get them into the flow

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of what they're doing and also to get some buy-in. Like this is a fun experience. This is something

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that you'll enjoy. So anytime we're at the boards, it should have that same feeling. So it's kind of

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setting them up for that idea that this is going to be a good time. We're going to do

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really fun things together and we get to work with a partner. Because I had read this book over

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the summer, I had set up my classroom with wanting a lot of that empty space available for them to

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work. Because I was starting right at the beginning of the year, there are so many routines that the

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kids have to learn and this is just another routine. The big things that I was thinking about would be

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a potential issue for the kids is sharing the marker. With your partner groups, there's only one

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marker between them so they actually have to talk to each other and discuss. So my concern was that

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they wouldn't be sharing the marker and that they wouldn't actually be talking to each other. A lot

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of parallel play or parallel discussion and not a lot of interaction. So when my first task for

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the kids was share the marker and take turns. And when I started, I had to be like, okay, two minutes,

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okay, switch the marker, switch the marker. But really, they got over that really quickly and I

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didn't have to do that continuing on. It was just kind of to get them used to switching on and off.

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And what I noticed them doing was they were good, we're going to share the marker, but they were

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very much doing their own thing next to each other instead of creating one thing together. So their

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task, their first task was share the marker and draw a picture on your whiteboard. And so they

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were drawing their own pictures in a future task. I had them try to draw something together. I kind

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of thought what is something that would really require them to work together if they want to do,

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if they want to accomplish a goal. So my next task a different day is I gave each group a pile of

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blocks and their goal was to build the tallest tower that they could together. So that really got

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them talking to each other trying to figure out what was the best way to build this tower. And

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it seemed really successful. And then after that, we went back to the whiteboards and I had them try

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and draw pictures together. And I did have to model what it might look like to do that. So

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like that kind of conversation like, well, what do you want to draw? I want to draw this. Okay,

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I'm going to draw one thing in this picture. And then you're going to draw the next. So I think the

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example was an ocean. It's like, okay, I'll draw the top of the water. And then the partner drew

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the sand, etc. They did much better than that. And then we went on to our first quote unquote

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official task. And so I gave each group a baggie of magnets. And I said, go count these. And the

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kids have to count them. They came back to the carpet. The whiteboard part of it was,

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how are you going to show me how many things that you have in your bag, how many items were in your

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collection. And that sparked a lot of really great discussion with the kids about how they might show

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that. And this was really great, especially for kindergarten beginning of kindergarten, because

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some kids come in and they know their numbers, they can count 200, like they have one to one

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correspondence, all of those big number things they have a good foundation of. And some students,

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it's really their first experience at school at all. And numbers are just squiggles, slig letters

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or squiggles. So that was a great kind of hands on way to get both partners involved, even if one

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of the partners didn't necessarily know their number symbol yet. So starting this building

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thinking classrooms journey, especially within mind that some students might not have the same

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numbers knowledge as others, I try to pick tasks that were very visual that didn't necessarily

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require writing numbers down to be able to solve the problem. And let me tell you finding tasks

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for kindergarten, especially beginning of the year kindergarten, was a challenge. I just wasn't

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really sure where to turn like the book itself has some examples. But again, I was like, some of my

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kids are still working on their one to one correspondence to three, like we're not ready for

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a lot of numbery type math problems. So that has been a challenge, but we work through it. And I

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will have a link below to some of the tasks that I use that my kids have really enjoyed.

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If you're wanting to try this in your classroom, and you only get to that part of the book,

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you are setting your kids up for a really great math problem solving experience, especially if

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you're told to give your kids rich math tasks. That's a quote unquote. And I rolled my eyes.

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But you're like, what kind of tasks am I going to give them? And how am I going to have them

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actually problem solving and not just mimicking or sitting there. So this is a really active way

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to break all of those kind of inhibitions down and really let their math skills show. One thing

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I will say is, as in any classroom, kids different at different speeds and different paces. So something

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that the book talks about is thin slicing. So if they've solved this problem, you can give them

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another problem that's similar, but just a little bit more challenging. So that's something I definitely

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had to work on like really thinking through, all right, what is this task going to be? What is the

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next step and next step? And another thing that also really helps if you're not quite there yet,

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is if you see that a group is finished, send them over to go help another group that might be

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struggling. And that's a great way for the students to learn from each other and also the kids who

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finished to be able to explain what it is that they were doing, which is another really great way

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for them to consolidate their learning. For me personally, I'm working on the next kind of steps

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in the book, which are consolidating your learning. So after they've done the problem or engaged in

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this problem, how am I going to kind of get them from the whiteboard to applying that knowledge or

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getting a good grip on that knowledge to be able to apply to other problem solving tasks

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and giving them choice and how it is they want to practice

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on their own or with their partner, what they were just working on on their whiteboard. I can't

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remember where I heard it, but in a study, they had asked a bunch of mathematicians to solve x

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problem. And what they noticed is someone who's actually really flexible with math and their

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thinking won't ever use an algorithm, they'll just use what they know to create a answer that

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makes sense for them with their knowledge. So that's my goal with this with my students. I want

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them to really be able to be flexible with the way that they approach a problem and persevere if

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something is challenging. And the best thing about doing this with young kids is they're not at the

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point where they really need homework, they're not at the point where they have tests that would be

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like state testing or anything like that. So I figure that if I can really get them thinking

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flexibly now when they're young, my hope is that as they go on to the next grade level and the next

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grade level, that will be in their brain and will help them to solve any problem that they get

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in any math class that they happen to be in. So like I said, I will leave a link to my original

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post, the cards, some really great resources that I use to find my tasks, and feel free to leave a

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comment, leave a review, ask me any questions, all of my information will be there. And I would love

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to connect with other teachers of young mathematicians who are trying this in their classroom or are

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interested in trying. Make sure to check out the book, it goes much more in depth than I could go

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here, and I will catch you in the next episode. Let me know if there's anything you would like me to

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talk about.