Offering Students Voice & Choice in Mathematics - Sarah Dallum

Teacher

Sarah Dallum, fourth grade teacher at Poplar Bridge, combines culturally responsive teaching with best practices in math instruction by offering students voice and choice.

Using best practices and Talk Moves, Sarah creates a rich learning community where her students are empowered to share their voices and make choices about their learning, resulting in effective, engaging math instruction that is accessible for each student.

Instructional Strategies 

Talk Moves in Action

Each day, a designated student performs the role of Math Lead. The student Math Lead launches peers into math instruction and leads the opening Number Sense Routine to begin addressing learning targets.

Sarah sits to the side and allows her student Math Lead to facilitate the learning discussion for the day’s Number Sense Routine, “Which one doesn’t belong?” First, students have one minute of quiet think time; they are encouraged to show a thumbs-up by their hearts when ready, rather than raising their hands. This strategy allows processing time for students who need it and encourages more participation. Several of the math Talk Moves are used, such as repeating, adding on and revoicing. Students share a variety of ideas and reasoning to support their thoughts, but Sarah does not evaluate the responses -- there is not one “right” answer. Students share openly with each other and the learning is socially constructed.

Accessible for All

Sarah’s background as a math student led to her current passion for teaching mathematics, but it’s not the path some might expect. Sarah did not discover her love for math until she became an adult, after relearning number sense and gaining more conceptual understanding. “I encourage my students by creating an environment where everyone has access to the information from many touch points. I use language as a way to teach math, and physical and visual prompts to close the gap between conceptual understanding and procedural knowledge.”

Sarah’s instructional strategies align with her philosophy. She combines movement and gestures to help students understand and take ownership of mathematical terms, such as numerator and denominator. Sarah uses the concrete-representational-abstract (CRA) approach for learning math: Students use fraction circles, math notebooks and drawings to solve problems and can use manipulatives at any time, based on the language. Sarah’s students will say, “We can use manipulatives, or our imaginations,” instead of saying you can use manipulatives “if you need to” or “if you have to.”

See What It Looks Like