New Teacher Talk turns a professional development session into something you can put to work right away. Hosts Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran welcome Helene Alalouf, an instructional math and literacy coach, who shares two Mathematical Language Routines designed to deepen student thinking, strengthen mathematical communication, and turn your classroom into a place where students make sense of math together.
Helene opens with two questions worth sitting with. Are your word problems reaching students at every proficiency level? And are students learning from one another, not just from you? From there she walks through two routines you can start using this week. The Information Gap gives students an incomplete problem and asks them to identify what is missing, then justify why they need each piece before you hand it over, which forces their reasoning into the open. Stronger and Clearer Each Time, her personal favorite, has students draft independently, then trade structured feedback with a series of partners, no copying allowed, before revising their work and reflecting on what made it better. The payoff is not just theoretical: Helene reports that four months of the second routine with grades 3 through 5 lifted state math and English scores from 48 to 61 percent, and she is now using both routines in AP history and science, too.
What you will take away:
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