Supporting mathematical talk

• Published in: Mathematics Teaching no. 281; pp. 33 - 36
• Main Authors: Brown, Julian, Coles, Alf, Ormesher, Caroline, Peatfield, Nicholas, Wilton-Rhead, Sarah
• Format: Trade Publication Article
• Language: English
• Published: Derby The Association of Teachers of Mathematics 01.05.2022
• Subjects: Critical point; Lesson Plans; Mathematical analysis; Mathematical Concepts; Mathematics; Mathematics Teachers; Numbers; Preservice Teachers; Reading; Scaffolding; Students; Subtraction; Teacher Educators; Teachers; Teaching Methods; Transcripts (Written Records); Video Technology; Websites
• ISSN: 0025-5785

After reading this paragraph, we would invite you to pause reading and watch the short video from the NCETM website, Maths subject leader Clare Christie talks about her Y1 lesson, (the final clip of the set is available using the link at the end of this article) and consider how similar or different this feels to conversations about lessons you may have with colleagues. The focus of the lesson was on difference as a form of subtraction (a series of videos of the teacher teaching and her children learning are available through the same link). In response to this observation Alf offered his awareness of the idea of 'difficult points' as coming from a Chinese lesson planning idea and Julian shared a framework from his recent reading, the 'three-point framework' (Yang and Ricks, 2012), summarised by Choy (2014): the key point refers to key mathematical ideas of the lesson; the difficult point refers to cognitive obstacles encountered by students when they attempt to learn the key point; and the critical point refers to the approach that teachers take to help students overcome the difficult point (p.144, italics in original). The teacher identifies a need to help the children in starting to see a relationship of comparison in the part-part-whole model by scaffolding future situations with this aim in mind.