Listen, I LOVE to talk. That’s why I have a podcast. I cannot function in my life without talking. I have to talk to work out my ideas, to understand, to fully experience life I have to talk. So, when I learned that maybe I didn’t need to talk quite so much in my classroom… it blew my mind. 

Why would you even want to talk less? The whole point of teaching is to help kids by showing and telling them what to do, right? 

Tune in to this week episode to learn the reason behind why talking less in your math classroom will help your students. 

In this episode we will chat about: 

• average attention span by age group
• what happens when students talk
• teaching students how to talk in a respectful way

Story time!

I was at the EL National Conference in Boston and Elenaor Duckworth was there. She is a former elementary teacher and now professor at Harvard School of Educator, but she also is the former student of Piaget. You know Piaget from Child Development courses in college, the stages of cognitive development, basically how babies learn.

Eleanor Duckwork’s approach, deeply rooted in Piaget’s theories, was a revelation. As she sat off to the side, a few children and a small table between them, she asked questions, never telling or explaining anything. Her intense listening was unlike anything I had seen before. Responding to what she heard, she guided them with questions.

In just 15 minutes, their discussion shifted from blocks to concepts like volume and surface area. They even extended their thinking to apply these ideas to other objects. I was speechless, and so this experience coincided with my exploration of cognitively guided instruction and Carpenter et al.’s work in Children’s Mathematics. I had been experimenting with letting my students solve real-world math problems without direct instruction, but this moment truly changed my approach.

Before, I would let them explore the problems and share their work and then I would show them how their work showed the learning target and I would draw their attention to what really mattered in the work and how it made sense.

Okay, so that is an experience I had that REALLY shifted how I showed up in my classroom. I started to focus on talking less and using my words to get students talking more. 

So, now let’s talk about engagement for a second. Study the graphic below. Does it shock you?

If 2nd and 3rd graders can stay engaged for 16 to 24 minutes and you teach in an “I do” – “we do” – “you do” model. Of course, accounting for the transitions and behavior redirections…all the things…it looks like this:

• “I do” is 10 minutes of you showing them
• “We do” is 15 minutes as you solve some problems together
• “You do” is when you send them off to practice on their own. The students have already lost their focus.

Let’s try a mini lesson. It looks like this:

• Mini lessons are suppose to be 5 to 10 minutes, but if it goes to 15 minutes, that’s fine.
• Now they practice for 10 mninutes. We’re still in their engagement window!
• Now it’s time to discuss and debrief.

We do not learn from experience, we learn from the reflection on an experience. So by the time you’re at the debrief, kids are checked out. So much for consolidating and formalizing their understanding so they can apply it to new problems.

Let’s try this approach:

• 5 minute launch 
• 8-10 minute grapple 
• 15 minute share of math strategies & math discussion 

Boom! In the 20-30 minute range and most of that time is NOT you talking, but instead students experiencing, discussing with a partner and discussing whole group! 

I recently witnessed this in a 3rd grade classroom. Some really great kids that appeared to be listening… 

• hands in desk 
• thinking about other things 
• side conversations 
• check out 
• writing 
• moving on the next problem 

But what happens when other students are talking?

• maybe the same thing 
• students think about what they want to say next 
• students thinking about something off topic

Step 1 is for teacher to stop talking but that’s not all. We also have to teach our students how to talk to each other and most importantly LISTEN to each other. 

Our end goal is…  

• to get students to collaborate so they have the skills to work on teams and innovate to solve problems 
• to reach mastery & show proficiency on the test
  

So what do they need? 

• -to listen to each other 
• -to learn from others’ perspectives 
• -to discern when something is on track or not, if they agree or disagree 
• -to be respectful in how they communicate their ideas 

Keep a check on yourself. Have you talked for more than 2 minutes?

I know that seems like a SUPER short amount of time but when we know what we know about student engagement and cognitive development and that is, when we talk, students aren’t learning. When students discuss and reflect upon their experiences they are learning.

Bottom line – talk less, so students can think more! 

📘 Children’s Mathematics Cognitively Guided Instruction

Have Questions? 📱 My DMs on IG are always open @hellomonamath