Reflection On Math Lesson

When I completed this lesson I actually felt I should re-think my decision to become an educator. Mrs. Anderson makes this job look easy. I had prepared my science lesson plan Monday and scheduled to start a 3-day lesson on Wednesday. I tried to keep my lesson close to the basal/textbook. I feel as though the students responded positively. They were responsible in raising their hands to answer questions. I had a note to “slow down” in my notes. This helped me pace my lesson appropriately. I felt confident….and then I did not! HOWEVER, this time I did not speed up my speaking and rush through the lesson as quickly as possible. I added a few examples that were not on my plan with the hopes to explain matter to the students and I believe that helped one or two students. I felt, as a class, we stayed on topic the entire class. There were a

How successful was the lesson? Did the students learn what you intended for them to learn? How do you know?

Through completing this activity, I learned more than I have with any other activity I have done thus far while earning my Education Specialist degree. I had to observe a teacher and provide constructive feedback using the Framework for Teaching. This observation included a pre-conference where the teacher told me what she wanted me to pay particular attention to. It required that I observe in real-time, rather than simply using a video where I can pause frequently. I then had to analyze the data I collected during the observation, in order to determine strengths and areas for improvement that I shared during the post-conference. The teacher was a master teacher and thought the lesson went very well. She was shocked when I had some ideas for how to improve her instruction. I mentioned that students seemed fidgety, and she could incorporate more cooperative structures to get students more active in their learning. I also thought she needed cooperative roles for students when they completed their group work, that way everyone was accountable for the work.

I don’t feel I managed equipment or space well in this lesson. I should have had the paddles out and the balls ready instead of having the students get them out of the ben. However, I do feel that I managed teacher movement well in this lesson. I made sure that I was moving at every moment that way I could accurate feedback to my students. If I had a group of 14 students, I would then break them down into groups of 2 or 4 depending on what sporting we are playing. I would do it this way so that I can see everybody and give appropriate feedback.

I feel like I was able to help my student in the areas he needed the support. I was beyond proud of the progress he made starting from a level 19 and ending at a level 28. Even then knowing he had the potential to go higher was a great feeling. Improving on his comprehension and spelling was a goal we had set and knowing I was able to help him and see the progress during each session was very rewarding.

The best thing that came out of this learning experience is my appreciation for the younger grades. I always thought that I wanted to a third grade teacher, but I do not think I need to limit myself. I had so much fun just watching the kids all interact with one another and have so many different thoughts. They truly liked learning and thought of their teacher as almost a mom like figure. I hope to instill this in my future classroom and to be in a school system that is ready to help

I noticed that many students pretended to not understand and they just wanted to prolong until the class was over. I didn’t think it was necessary to repeat the video maybe more than three times. The teacher gave out the worksheet to the students prior to the video and the worksheet was going to be scored, so the teacher wanted to make sure that the students did ok. Most of the activities the teacher did for the class were limited to one activity and that was to practice with the groups, reviewing and practicing what the teacher just

This lesson turned out to be my first significant lesson failure. Elapsed time was too difficult of a topic to try a new method out. Also, I had planned for the Number Talk to only take about ten to fifteen minutes to complete. Instead, the problems I gave were too difficult to move quickly and the Number Talk portion of my

Dee asked the students how the Pythagorean Theorem related to area. Students caught on to this pretty rapidly by responding that in some situations they may need to find a missing side of the triangle before being able to find area. After completing the warm-up, Dee projected the answers to the homework on the board and asked if there needed to be clarification on any of the problems. For the introduction of the current day’s lesson, Dee projected the powerpoint presentation on the board. This included the lesson essential question. She asked the students to recall what they had learned the previous day and related it to what they were to be learning today. During the lesson Dee stressed to the students that titles, like the Segment Addition Postulate, had high importance. Students took notes on a notes packet while following along with the lesson. Dee walked through examples with the students in using the Segment Addition Postulate. She also stressed that, “part + part = whole.” Students then worked with Dee, “we do,” in order to solve additional examples. After this, students were told to practice the remaining examples in the notes packet either on their own or with a

The day started off fairly well. Hatfield hadn’t told his students I was going to be observing, and thus they assumed I was his daughter or a substitute teacher. After giving the students their bellwork, he quickly dove into the lesson. Hatfield had taken a day leave the day before, so the classroom was a bit scrambled with what they did with their substitute. It was an interactive day with videos, discussions, and written work. The good thing was that he really seemed to love what he was doing and could keep the students under his reigns fairly well. There were some attitudes from some of the students that he dismissed with ease and it was palpable that he had been doing this for years.

I personally think that my lesson went pretty well. It seemed like many people were engaged and they participated. There are things that I could have done to make the activity more challenging for the consonant digraphs and consonant blends, but overall I think the activity was fun. I felt like the students payed attention to when I was speaking at the beginning and the end of the activity, which was ideal for any lesson.

An example of such a lesson was when I taught vertical subtraction with borrowing. I selected students to demonstrate the steps in solving the equation using MABs while I demonstrated writing the equation and working out on the whiteboard. I explained each step along the way, ensuring students understood that when borrowing the value of the number remains the same, when and why we borrow and how it works. Most students were confident at this stage and went to work on some problems. For students who were still unsure, as a smaller group we worked on equations together, with students writing on mini whiteboards and using MABs. These students were then confident to work on the equations. This allowed me to check what other students had been doing, ask questions to ensure understanding and to encourage students to find errors they may have made, praise the work of students, and provide feedback to students to best assist them in correctly solving the equations. Students concluded by reflecting on what they had learnt and strategies they had

In general, how successful was the lesson? Did the students learn what you intended for them to learn? How do you know?

Multiplicative thinking, fractions and decimals are important aspects of mathematics required for a deep conceptual understanding. The following portfolio will discuss the key ideas of each and the strategies to enable positive teaching. It will highlight certain difficulties and misconceptions that children face and discuss resources and activities to help alleviate these. It will also acknowledge the connections between the areas of mathematics and discuss the need for succinct teaching instead of an isolated approach.

During the observation time I was placed in a first grade classroom. Walking into the class I began to look around and smile, there was so much color all over the classroom I could not help but feel happier. The teacher immediately stopped the class and told us what they were doing that morning and had each student introduce themselves to us. They went around and stated their name and then went back to their math workbook. When they were finished with their math worksheets they were then able to pick something to do around the room. That included reading on their own, getting to use the iPad, working on the computer, etc. Some students were together while others chose to work on things independently.