Number Talks: Assessment and Evaluation

Sherry Parrish, 2010

Dot Talks: Building Fluency with Numbers https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/addition-math-lesson-ousd via @TeachingChanne

A large part of number talks is being able to communicate thinking through numbers, drawings and words. Prompts such as these facilitate effective and positive collaboration. 

During a number talk, students are thinking, asking their peers questions, and explaining their own thinking all while the teacher records the thinking.

This is a great resource for incorporating technology into number talks. 

The teacher in this video realized that because only a small portion of her students were contributing during number talks, she did not have a full picture of each learners understanding. So she started doing “check-ins” where she worked with a small group to address any misconceptions. In this video we see junior students, but this method could easily be done with primary students as well. 

Exit cards are a great way to assess what students have retained from a number talk. They’re versatile, and can be adapted to suit the needs of many different types of students. 

Mini dry erase boards are a fantastic way to quickly assess students’ understanding. They enable every student to show his/her answer at the same time, and they are versatile: they can be used for whole group instruction, small guided groups, and/or learning centers.

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/subtraction-math-lesson-ousd

Taking a picture of student thinking is a great way to look back on student progression and is a quick way to do assessment. Plus making the students processes visible for all students allows students to learn new strategies. Teachers can take this as an opportunity to show different models/visuals for students to use ie. a number line, arrays, groups to help expand their thinking.

https://www.youcubed.org/evidence/aligning-assessment-brain-science/

This is a helpful list that one can use to help assess students answers in a Number Talk. Are students using any of the tools to help determine the answer or are they struggling with a certain concept?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Number-Talks-Grades-K-5-Computation/dp/1935099116 

These hand signals are meant to be used during Number Talks. The student places a hand close to his/her chest to signal to the teacher without feeling self-conscious or distracting others. This is also a quick and easy way for the teacher to assess where students are at ANY point in the lesson. Teachers can then either take a step back, clarify certain concepts or move on to the next step. 

This is one way that you can track student answers in a number talk (I know it says planning but I would use it to record what you had on the board and write where this number talk is going to lead your next lesson to based on student answers).

Another tracking sheet that is quick and easy to fill out after a number talk