Number and Operations Archives - MARILYN BURNS MATH

Addition Assessment General Interest Interviews One-on-One Listening to Learn Mental Math Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning

What Were Meeyah & Rocco Thinking?

During a Listening to Learn interview, when asked to figure out mentally the missing number in the problem 90 – ___ = 75, Meeyah and Rocco explained their reasoning in different ways. Listen to how they thought and how I used these two videos for a class lesson.

Marilyn BurnsMarch 12, 2023

Addition Assessment General Interest Interviews One-on-One Listening to Learn Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning Subtraction Videos

What Was Rebecca Thinking?

Rebecca solved 7 – 3 by adding, demonstrating the important numerical reasoning strategy of applying the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction. Read about what happened when I used the video clip of Rebecca in a class lesson.

Marilyn BurnsApril 10, 2022

General Interest Interviews One-on-One Listening to Learn Mental Math Multiplication Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning Silent Math

What Was Nathan Thinking?

In a Listening to Learn interview, Nathan knew from memory that 6 x 5 equals 30. He explained to Rusty Bresser, "So, 6 divided by 2 equals 3, and you just add a zero behind it." Here's a suggestion for using that video clip in a lesson and what happened in two different classes.

Marilyn BurnsFebruary 22, 2022

General Interest Mental Math Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning

Answers Are Only the Starting Point

I woke up early this morning, scanned Twitter, and was pulled in (as I always am) by Pam Harris’s Share Your Thinking problem. (Thanks, @pwharris!) Here’s how I responded and what I learned.

Marilyn BurnsNovember 18, 2021

Addition Do The Math General Interest Interviews One-on-One Listening to Learn Math and Literature Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning Place Value

A Children’s Book, Differentiating Math Instruction, and More

I love incorporating children’s books into math lessons. Since most of my teaching focuses on math, it’s a treat for me to read a book aloud to a class. After the students have a chance to enjoy the story and respond to the illustrations, then I use the book as a springboard for a math lesson.

Marilyn BurnsAugust 31, 2021

General Interest Interviews One-on-One Listening to Learn Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning

How We Begin the School Year Is More Important Than Ever

Over the years, I’ve collaborated with Lynne Zolli and Patty Clark on a variety of math education projects. For this blog, we worked together to share our thinking about how Listening to Learn math interviews can serve teachers and students.

Marilyn BurnsAugust 16, 2021

Estimation General Interest Interviews One-on-One Listening to Learn Mental Math Multiplication Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning

Two Students . . . Two Different Ways of Reasoning

On Wednesday, May 5, 2021, I posted the sixth in my Wednesday Twitter series of video clips from Listening to Learn math interviews. The response to this Tweet amazed me―it received over 100,000 impressions! I was appreciative of the many supportive and insightful replies. Read more.

Marilyn BurnsMay 11, 2021

Division General Interest Interviews One-on-One Mental Math Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning

What is 100 ÷ 3? Why We Ask and What We Learn

Asking students to solve problems mentally, without paper and pencil, is always revealing and often surprising. I thought that asking students to solve 100 ÷ 3 would be sort of a slam dunk. My, was I wrong!

Marilyn BurnsApril 8, 2021

Games General Interest Multiplication Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning

What’s the Longest Number String Possible?

I just learned about Factors and Multiples, a shelter-at-home game that’s engaging as solitaire and can be played as a two-person game either cooperatively or competitively. (I’ve played it both ways.) It’s intriguing for both adults and kids (as long as players know about factors and multiples of numbers up to 100). It’s a keeper.

Marilyn BurnsApril 3, 2020

General Interest Mental Math Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning

What Are Good Math Questions to Ask Students?

Good Questions for Math Teaching is a Math Solutions book that has long been one of my favorites. It’s a resource that I dip into when I feel the need for something fresh. And it speaks directly to our current shelter-in-place coronavirus crisis as many of us look for ways to mathematically engage students online, children at home, or both. Here are samples to get you started. I’ll continue to post more ideas on Twitter (@mburnsmath).

Marilyn BurnsMarch 17, 2020

Games General Interest Math Menus Number and Operations Probability

One of My All Time Favorite Games

I’m a huge fan of math games, especially when they involve both strategic thinking and luck. And I’m always on the search for games that work with a span of grade levels. The Two-Dice Sums Game fits both. Learn about the game and read the letters of advice that 7th graders wrote to 2nd graders.

Marilyn BurnsDecember 9, 2019

Algorithms Decimals General Interest Interviews One-on-One Mental Math Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning Tutoring

Algorithms Are Not Enough!

Last year, I agreed to meet with a friend’s sixth-grade son. Oscar’s math teacher had raised an alarm for my friend and her husband about Oscar’s math progress. They were shocked. Oscar did his homework and was proficient with paper-and-pencil math. What was the problem?

Marilyn BurnsFebruary 19, 2019

Decimals General Interest Multiplication Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning Real-World Problems Videos Word Problems

When You Multiply by 10, Just Add a Zero? Horrors!?!

Have you ever asked students to solve 12.6 x 10, and they respond that the answer is 12.60? I have, many times. Students who do this apply a pattern that works when they multiply whole numbers by 10—they tack on a zero to the end of the number they’re multiplying. But then they apply the same pattern when working with decimals. What can we do?

Marilyn BurnsOctober 1, 2018

Decimals Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning Problem Solving

Teaching Adding Decimals: What If You Give the Answer First?

When teaching students to add decimals, I wind up reminding students to “line up the decimal points.” This makes sense to some students while others follow the rule without understanding. How can we teach adding decimals to develop understanding and skill? Here’s a possible suggestion: Give the correct answer up front.

Marilyn BurnsJanuary 14, 2018

Division General Interest Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning Real-World Problems Silent Math Word Problems

One Lesson, Two Pedagogical Mistakes

I believe strongly that mistakes are learning opportunities. At least that’s what I regularly tell students. But it sometimes feels different when the mistakes are mine . . . and especially when they are pedagogical mistakes that I make while teaching. That happened to me recently when teaching a lesson to fourth graders.

Marilyn BurnsJanuary 1, 2018

Decimals Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning

A Decimal Lesson . . . about 13/20 and More

I love Twitter. On November 3, 2017, I saw this image in a Tweet posted by @MarkChubb3. The image stuck with me for several days. After talking about it over dinner with a teacher friend, and then again over lunch with another, I became curious to find out what students might think. I made arrangements to “borrow” three fifth-grade classes and made plans to teach the same lesson in each class.

Marilyn BurnsDecember 19, 2017

Division Estimation General Interest Multiplication Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning

Preparing and Planning: How I Get Ready for Teaching a Math Lesson

A friend and I were talking recently about how much work we put into planning lessons. Even after all these years of teaching, I have to think through lessons as carefully as possible, both about the logistics and about the mathematical thinking I want to keep in mind and support. Here’s an example.

Marilyn BurnsMarch 27, 2017

Games General Interest Math Menus Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning

Oh No! 99!

The card game Oh No! 99! is a keeper! It gives practice with mentally adding one- and two-digit numbers and with adding and subtracting 10 from two-digit numbers. The game encourages strategic thinking as students decide which cards to play and which to keep, and it’s also useful as an informal assessment. Read about how the game was used with second and fifth graders.

Marilyn BurnsMarch 5, 2017

Assessment Books by Marilyn Division General Interest Math and Literature Multiplication Number and Operations Numerical Reasoning Problem Solving Word Problems

One Lesson, Three Grades, Three Twists

The children's book 17 Kings and 42 Elephants by Margaret Mahy is one of my long-time favorites. In this post I describe a division lesson that I’ve taught to third graders but recently revisited with fourth- and fifth-grade classes. With the older students, we tried extensions that differentiated the experience and put students in charge of deciding on problems for themselves. It was exciting to me to expand a lesson I've taught many times into a multi-day investigation.

Marilyn BurnsJanuary 30, 2017

Games General Interest Multiplication Number and Operations

Multiplication Bingo

Will Multiplication Bingo guarantee that students learn the multiplication facts? No. But it will help familiarize them with factors and multiples, engage them in a game that involves both luck and strategy, encourage them to make conjectures, and have them use data to guide decisions. Plus, the game provides a way to send home information to families about how their children are being asked to think and reason in math class.

Marilyn BurnsNovember 28, 2016

Number and Operations