Making Number Talks Matter: Developing Mathematical Practices and Deepening Understanding, Grades 4-10, Apr/2015

Making Number Talks Matter is about the myriad decisions facing teachers as they make this fifteen-minute daily routine a vibrant and vital part of their mathematics instruction. Throughout the book, Cathy Humphreys and Ruth Parker offer practical ideas for using Number Talks to help students learn to reason numerically and build a solid foundation for the study of mathematics. This book will be an invaluable resource whether you are already using Number Talks or not; whether you are an elementary, middle school, high school, or college teacher; or even if you are a parent wanting to support your child with mathematics.

Using insight gained from many years of doing Number Talks with students of all ages, Cathy and Ruth address questions to ask during Number Talks, teacher moves that turn the thinking over to students, the mathematics behind the various strategies, and ways to overcome bumps in the road. If you've been looking for ways to transform your mathematics classroom—to bring sense-making and divergent thinking to the foreground, to bring the Standards for Mathematical Practice to life, and to bring joy back into your instruction—this book is for you.

"Mathematically powerful classrooms support students in sense making—in exploring, conjecturing, and building on ideas individually and collectively. In Making Number Talks Matter, Cathy Humphreys and Ruth Parker show how to make such exciting and productive mathematical discussions take place in your classroom. Read it, try it!"   —Alan Schoenfeld, University of California–Berkeley

Inside every number calculation are buried the seeds of algebra. This wonderful new book shows how to use Number Talks to grow those seeds and meet the challenges of the Common Core. Cathy and Ruth have given us a wise and practical book on how Number Talks can help solve some of the most pressing problems facing schools.  --- Phil Daro, member of the Common Core Standards writing team

About The Authors:

Cathy Humphreys is currently a doctoral student at Stanford University, where she studies mathematics teaching and learning. She has taught grades 2-12 in the California public schools for thirty years, has worked as an instructor for the Mathematics Education Collaborative and for Math Solutions, and has served as a mathematics coach for the Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative. In addition to Making Number Talks Matter (coauthored with Ruth Parker, Stenhouse 2015), Cathy and Jo Boaler coauthored Connecting Mathematical Ideas (Heinemann 2005).

Ruth Parker is a former classroom teacher and has spent over twenty years leading professional development for math teachers in grades K-12. She is currently the CEO of the Mathematics Education Collaborative, preparing the next generation of mathematics teacher leaders for Washington state.

She received her master's degree and her PhD from the University of Oregon. "Nothing is more satisfying than watching my students develop a sense of agency, a curiosity about new mathematical ideas, and an awareness that they have mathematical ideas worth sharing," Ruth says of her love of teaching.

Ruth loves hiking, especially in the Pacific Northwest, and playing with her grandchildren.