As this was a review of the chapter before our test, students overall did a good job applying the skills we have learned throughout this chapter. Every single one of my students can correctly identify a number based on the tens and ones, and can find the tens and ones of any given two digit number. I did not have any student fail to identify if a number was greater than or less than another number. In retrospect, I realized that during this lesson I placed very little emphasis on the greater than and less than signs themselves, but this was a large component of the independent practice work. Overall, I have been impressed with the learning progress my students made during this chapter. It was a quick chapter with only 5 lessons, but students moved quickly and comfortably through the content. Next Steps …show more content…
The next step is to give students their end of the chapter assessment and evaluate any potential gaps in learning that I need to address whole group for my students.
During this lesson, I pushed my students to be able to justify their answers using their knowledge of tens and ones. While not explicitly taught during any of the curriculum lessons, it is a skill required on a number of questions on the test. I predict that some students will struggle with this portion of the test due to their lack of practice using academic language to rationalize their answers. My students “know” what numbers are greater or less, but during this lesson I still heard “I just knew” instead of them going back to their models every time to cite evidence to support their answer. As I finish out this year, and as I think about my teaching practice next year, this is definitely an area of growth that I want to focus
on. Assess and Refine Classroom space and culture In my first grade class, behaviors have begun to grow a bit more intense. Because of this, during this small group rotation, I placed myself on the carpet in the center of the class (as opposed to one of the tables on either sides of the classroom. I think this change really helped me to keep an eye on all of the students who were not in my group better, and allowed almost all students to be equidistant from me. In previous small group rotations, students at the table furthest from me spent a significant amount of time off-task. However, during this lesson, I was able to catch and address more of these behaviors and because of that students were able to complete more of their work. I want to continue with this change for the next couple of days to see if this change in classroom space usage continues to provide me with benefits. Course Content As discussed on my last reflection, I benefitted by connecting my teaching practice to Bloom’s Taxonomy. In particular, I believe the discussion on using Bloom’s Taxonomy to evaluate your questioning to be particularly helpful. Upon reflection, I do not think I ever intentionally thought about the level of thinking required in my questioning. I would simply ask students to answer questions that I believed would push their thinking forward and increase understanding/check for understanding. What I value about applying Bloom’s Taxonomy to your questioning is that it gives you a framework by which to evaluate your own questioning. While I do not think that my questioning was stagnant at the first or second level, I believe that the majority of my questions peaked at the “apply” level. Upon reflection, I realized that I hardly ever asked my students questions that moved beyond that third level. During this lesson, I was really intentional about trying to ask my students 5th level evaluation questions – “How do you know that this number is greater than another number” and “How is Jaiel’s model different from your own model?” This way, I am challenging my students to really make sense of the work that they are doing.
The teaching and learning approaches I use in numeracy, have certainly developed over this course. I have seen the information that needs to be given to the learner is just a tiny part in teaching, the most significant part of delivery is how you do it. There are three main learning theories.
The National Numeracy Strategy was implemented in September 1999, setting a target for 75% of all pupils reaching at least level four in mathematics by 2002. This essay will focus on the findings since the implementation of the strategy for both pupils and teachers. In order to do this I will examine the Numeracy Strategy Framework guidelines, which state how the teaching of mathematics should be carried out in primary education and evaluate some of the main criticisms since the implementation.
When conducting this interview, I have learned a lot about the different differentiation strategies that my host teacher uses in her classroom and how they are both similar yet different from tracking students in the classroom. This has informed me on what skills I want to possess in my future classroom and what I want to do to make my students the most successful they can be when learning mathematics.
As a middle school math teacher in Chippewa Falls, WI, Steven Reinhart often found that even his extensive planning and detailed lessons yielded less than high achievements from his students. He wanted to know why, that no matter how perfect his lessons were, his students’ level of achievement was so low. It even caused him to question his own methods of teaching. So Reinhart developed an idea to commit to gradually changing his ways of teaching by 10% each year. With the goal of simply teaching a single topic in a better way than the previous year, he “collected and used materials and ideas gathered from supplements, workshops, professional journals, and university classes” to achieve this goal (Reinhart, 2000).
Countless time teachers encounter students that struggle with mathematical concepts trough elementary grades. Often, the struggle stems from the inability to comprehend the mathematical concept of place value. “Understanding our place value system is an essential foundation for all computations with whole numbers” (Burns, 2010, p. 20). Students that recognize the composition of the numbers have more flexibility in mathematical computation. “Not only does the base-ten system allow us to express arbitrarily large numbers and arbitrarily small numbers, but it also enables us to quickly compare numbers and assess the ballpark size of a number” (Beckmann, 2014a, p. 1). Addressing student misconceptions should be part of every lesson. If a student perpetuates place value misconceptions they will not be able to fully recognize and explain other mathematical ideas. In this paper, I will analyze some misconceptions relating place value and suggest some strategies to help students understand the concept of place value.
Students were also evaluated to understand the concept that the sum of a fraction may be decomposed into parts (or recomposed into an equal sum). Next students had to express the decomposed fraction as a multiplication equation. Lastly, students had to label and plot the decomposed equivalent fraction on a number line with jumps (representing the decomposition). These concepts which all correlate with one another was challenging and extremely difficult for 3/4th of the students within the class. Question 3 A & B are based on the concept of decomposing fractions. Data shows 16 students struggled with question 3 A and 18 students struggled with 3B. Due to the amount of students with IEP’s, 504’s, and students needing extra math support, mathematical concepts and skills are challenging and often these types of student population have gaps in learning. As stated previously 3/4ths of students, especially those students with special needs did not comprehend the concept. It is quite possible many students did not receive or understand the foundational fraction concepts and notions. The students that fall bellow grade level really required further instructional on the concepts of what a fraction is.
Next, I will have the students draw a ten and ones chart on their whiteboards and I will give them a problem to put in their chart to subtract with regrouping. We will discuss how to solve this problem while we use our base ten blocks to show why borrowing a ten from the tens place creates ten ones to help us regroup. Furthermore, I will give the students each a piece of scratch paper and tell them problems to write down and solve using their base ten blocks and showing a ten and ones chart. There will be four problems all together. The instructional materials used for this lesson are whiteboards and base ten blocks. The assessment to monitor student learning during the lesson is the use of the individual whiteboards while I observe what they do and write on their boards and a quick quiz with four questions that I will collect.][The identified area of struggle for the three focus students were to correctly identify the tens and ones place so they could correctly regroup a ten to the ones when subtracting two numbers. The strategies used in my re-engagement lesson were to review the place value and have them use a tens and ones chart when subtracting so they would remember the place values when subtracting with
The teacher pulled me aside and said, “These multiplication flashcards do not click with her, if you could try to help her break it down and determine each number perhaps she would listen to you more.” This student was often getting tired and lacked the interest flipping through each flashcard and truly not understanding the equation. I took her out of the class and sat her down, she was quite shy and bored form the begging. We started to run through each one and marking the cards that she that struggled with. Working for 45 minutes, most cards clicked and came at an ease. Not only did her multiplication facts advance so did her emotions, growing confidence and excitement after each
Understanding base ten numbers is one of the most important mathematics topics taught in primary school, and yet it is also one of the most difficult to teach and learn. Base ten blocks are used to teach place value concepts, but in a lot of cases, children often do not perceive the links between numbers, symbols, and models. Research shows that many children have inaccurate or faulty number conceptions, and use rote-learned procedures
Math has a lot of misconceptions that can really affect how a student performs in the subject throughout their educational career. As a teacher, I plan on building on student’s strengths and allowing them to grow in confidence in the subject of math. According to Hwang, Morano, and Riccomini (n.d.) “With careful design, independent math practice can build students’ confidence and proficiency and help them move from novice learners to expert learners.” As a teacher I plan on building upon my students strengths, and assessing their learning in order to organize my content. Using hands-on materials, and differentiating instruction so that each student can build upon their knowledge will do this and will allow students to succeed. As a future
When I introduced my lesson as asked the kids for a thumbs up or thumbs down if they remembered working with greater than or less than symbols and if they understand which way the symbol went. I feel like this worked pretty well because I was able to get a quick glance of how the students felt about the lesson before the lesson. I was also able to see which students would need a little extra help in the lesson. One thing that I found problematic was that I only got a quick glance of what the students thought about the lesson. Next time I did this lesson I would actually count how many thumbs were up and how many were down. In order to get a better observation of my students. The students learning was impacted by communicating to me, the teacher, how they felt about the lesson and how comfortable they felt with the material of the lesson. While doing the lesson I could tell the students who had their thumbs up were completing the lesson with no problem and the students with thumbs down were struggling a little bit. If students didn’t understand that material I would also try to explain the problem in a different way using working like bigger or smaller rather than greater than or less than. I was able to tell this by the worksheet of the student and the exit sheets. I had the students turn in the exit sheet and work sheet together, and if the students drew a smiley face on the exit sheet they
Mathematics teachers teach their students a wide range of content strands – geometry, algebra, statistics, and trigonometry – while also teaching their students mathematical skills – logical thinking, formal process, numerical reasoning, and problem solving. In teaching my students, I need to aspire to Skemp’s (1976) description of a “relational understanding” of mathematics (p. 4). Skemp describes two types of understanding: relational understanding and instrumental understanding. In an instrumental understanding, students know how to follow steps and sequential procedures without a true understanding of the mathematical reasons for the processe...
Angeles would count the number of dots of each side of the domino. She did a great way to explain to the class how to talk and teach kindergarten students. Angeles taught the class what an adding and subject looks like by saying it is called an equation, the sign in between the numbers determines if you add or subject, and the equal sign is our answer, or solution. I loved how Angeles teaching the lesson as if we were kindgarters. She use positive feedback, and also had a smile on her face. I could see how passionate she was to teach math to kindergarters students. Katie Hart drew a number line on the board to show how to add and subject. Katie was patient and did not rush to teach us how to use the number line. I loved how both of the group members taught the class how to add and subject by using two different methods.
Using a four step model for math problem solving has been successful in many ways. Each step was taught individually and then the importance of all the steps together became the next goal. As many of the students were not reading at a high enough level to independently read the problems, I continued to read the problems to the majority of the students. The children learned to underline the numbers in the problem and listen for key-words and phrases (e.g. How many in all? How many more? How many fewer?) These key phrases were an excellent way to differentiate and challenge students who had mastered the simpler problems. The simplest problems involved primarily “How many in all?” where the student was solving for the “whole” in a
Booker, G. & Bond, D. & Sparrow, L. & Swan, P. (2010) Teaching Primary Mathematics 4th Ed. Pearson, French Forest, NSW.