Clip 2/3: Number Talk: 2nd Grade
Overview
In the number talk, Arrillaga engages her students in a discussion of different answers to the addition problem 59 + 37. She gathers different responses from students, which vary but also demonstrate consensus around the correct response. She then asks students to talk about how they solved it, and develops their thinking through discourse, for example by asking, “Where does the 5 and the 3 come from?” One student shares how they “broke” the 7 into 6 and 1, and Arrillaga elaborates, “You broke, you decomposed the number?” Arrillaga attaches each student’s method of solving to their name. Her student Cesar contributes that he wants to use the “Australian Method,” which refers to a previous conversation in which a mathematics coach showed the students how they could use partial sums to solve in addition. The class discusses the “Australian Method” and compares how Noemi’s method differs in its representation of the 16.