Numbered Heads

Mode of Instruction: Teamwork           Purpose: Individual accountability

Objective: To support productive struggle in learning mathematics, students collectively and individually support each other through building mathematical ideas and relationships. Teacher monitors the equitable participation of team members and poses purposeful questions.

Numbered Heads is an effective strategy for keeping all students involved and accountable during teamwork. Students number off in teams. Then they are given a problem to solve, a question to answer, or any task to complete. The team members work together making sure that each student in the team understands what they are doing, knows the answers, and can explain the team's work.

  • Students number themselves 1 - 4 in their team.

  • Each team member is assigned a team role, task, or problem number that they are responsible for.

  • Teacher circulates, stops at a group, and asks a random number to answer a checking for understanding question.

  • The Teacher can use a random number to have students share out at the end of class.


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