Zooming Through Number Talks

Abstract

In this time of COVID-19, teachers across North Carolina are learning a variety of new technologies to teach online. As a preservice teacher, I felt like my experiences of learning a new teaching practice while simultaneously learning to teach online are relevant to the current teaching conditions. My thesis advisor and I wanted to share my story of what I learned about implementing virtual number talks with North Carolina teachers in hopes that they too would try this beneficial teaching practice with their students.

This article provides background information on number talks and how it helps third grade students build fact fluency with multiplication. Then I describe the study I completed for my honors thesis project when instruction moved online in the spring semester of 2020. Finally, I provide insight into the tensions that arose during this study and how to address those tensions if other teachers decided to implement virtual number talks with their own students.