Who is in the driver's seat?

I finally made it to the beach and am blessed to be spending one of the last weekends of my summer on the Central California coast with my family. This is one of my favorite places to be, and how could it not be with views such as these:

As I sat in the passenger seat on the way here today, I was reminded of a time more than a decade ago when I was getting ready to drive over here by myself. I was pretty sure I knew the way, as I had been in the car countless times as my husband drove us here. But when it came right down to it, I was worried that I'd miss a few essential turns, and that somehow I'd end up miles away from where I was supposed to be, probably stranded on the side of the road.

Then it struck me: how many of our students feel this way when left to do work on their own? Do we ever allow them a chance to be in the driver's seat? Or are they constantly tucked into the passenger seat, just along for the ride?

Enter Making Number Talks Matter:

Again, here's a link

I just finished reading it...cover...to...cover and HIGHLY recommend this to anyone who teaches math. I thought I knew what number talks were until I read this. Now I totally get it. 

I will be doing number talks EVERY DAY in my support classes, and will incorporate them regularly in my math 7 classes as well. The point that was driven home for me in this book is that number talks make the students responsible for the talking, and allow them to interact with their peers in the context of numbers. In other words...this puts STUDENTS in the driver's seat. I'm just there to guide the way. 

So here's where I'm stuck: what topic to begin? The authors recommend starting with dot talks, which I will do. I am torn, however, with whether to begin with subtraction or multiplication. Thoughts? Our first unit is proportional reasoning, so division is also tempting. 

Now if only I could get into my classroom! But for now I'll just soak up the sun at the beach.