Making the most of having Primarily Math colleagues nearby, Grand Island Public Schools (GIPS) teachers Dana Henry, Amber Woitaszewski, Whitney Flowers, Vanessa Bartels and Cindy Beaman, have teamed up to make a difference in elementary mathematics instruction across the district.
At designated times of the year, GIPS teachers meet in grade level groups for professional development. Knowing they had a lot to share, and that they could support one another, Primarily Math veterans Dana Henry, Amber Woitaszewski, Whitney Flowers, Vanessa Bartels and Cindy Beaman, led the January professional development meetings designed to encourage their peers to engage students in conversations focused on mathematics using "Math Talk." Team members assembled materials, developed a power point presentation, and created a video using footage from their own classrooms in order to explain and demonstrate "talk moves" being used in classrooms within GIPS.
More about this can be found in the upcoming 2013 Primarily Math Magazine, due to be mailed to your schools in March. Dana Henry of Knickrehm Elementary says to NebraskaMATH in the magazine, "We gave a presentation on Math Talk or ‘Talk Moves’ to the staff. We showed videos of each of the different talk moves, and had conversations about each of them, and then found similarities and differences between them. We encouraged each one of our colleagues to work harder at incorporating at least one new talk move each quarter."
In case they are useful to you, a copy of the slide presentation and the videos used by the GIPS team (along with other resources) can be downloaded at these sites:
PowerPoint: http://go.unl.edu/nm_ppt.
Resources: http://go.unl.edu/pm_mathmoves
http://go.unl.edu/pm_comm
K-1 Math Talk video: http://go.unl.edu/pmvid3
2nd and 3rd Math Talk video: http://go.unl.edu/pmvid4