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Sarah Edison Teacher Interview 11/1/2013 1.

What types of mathematical tasks do you think help students learn mathematics at this age? If they can use visuals and manipulatives, it makes it easier for students to understand how mathematics works. They dont always understand the numbers and patterns and how math works until they can see it. 2. When you prepare a lesson, about how much time do you allocate to the development of mathematical concepts and how much time to skill and practice? I usually allow 20-40 minutes for the concept and about 20 minutes to skill. 3. When you teach math, how do you assess conceptual development? We use thumbs up, I walk around the room and I often give students a ticket out the door question. This informally shows me that my students understand the topic. 4. How do you use this conceptual assessment to advance students learning? I put the students in small groups. Small groups allows them to really discuss the problems and show problem-solving skills. 5. How do you use your assessment of students to help them to do well on end- ofgrade tests (EOG)? The test questions I give are EOG type questions. I incorporate a lot of problem solving and strategies to help the prepare for the EOG. 6. How does the EOG affect your teaching practice throughout the year? It helps me reinforce mathematical strategies. We spend a longer amount of time on fractions because they are a big part of the EOGs today. 7. How does your school or school system use the results of the EOG? We use the scores to figure out if the students will be in honors classes in the next school year.

Reflection 1. What were your impressions about the teachers attitude towards assessing students learning? I like that the students are assessed each day, even if sometimes it comes in the form of an informal assessment. Like the teacher said, she has the students give a thumbs up if they understand something they just went over. However, formal assessment is important too because it allows you to concentrate on something that needs to be retaught. 2. What is your reaction to the teachers comments about students conceptual assessment? I like that the teacher spends so much time on conceptual development during instruction. This makes things easier when assessing students. Students really working on the concept and later on practicing with problems helps them to show their work. If they show their work, it helps to figure out where a mistake was made.

Student Interview Sarah Edison 10/30/2013 1. Begin with the attached handout. In tasks one though five, ask the student the following three questions for each figure: What is the whole? The student correctly showed each figures whole. He even drew a line dividing the boxes on figure number six. Does the shaded part show three-fourths (or three-fifths or three- sevenths) of the whole? The student said that the shaded part showed three-fourths for figures 1, 2, 3, and 5. He said that the shaded part showed three-sevenths for figure four. Why or why not? The student explained that he counted the totals parts, used it as a denominator and then counted the shaded parts and used if for the numerator. 2. Ask the student to draw another picture of a whole and to show threefourths, three-fifths, and three-sevenths. The student drew three different pictures. He drew a square divided into four squares and shaded in three of those. He also drew a rectangle divided into five parts and shaded in three boxes. Then he drew a rectangle divided into seven parts and shaded in three boxes. 3. In task number six, ask the student to name the improper fraction indicated by the picture. First ask the student to identify the whole in this picture. At first he told me that the boxes equaled 2 , but then he drew the lines to divide the boxes into two equal parts and told me that it equaled 5/2. 4. In task number seven, ask the student to name the two fractions on the number line. What is the unit or whole on the number line? How would you express the number 1 as a fraction? How would you express the numbers 2 and 3 as fractions? The student said that the first point was 4/5 and the second was 3/5. He said that the whole was from 0-1, 1-2, 2-3 and 3-4. He then showed me that 1 equals 1/1, 2 equals 2/2, 3 equals 3/3, and 4 equals 4/4.

5. Ask the student to show you three-fourths of 20 objects. I gathered 20 popsicle sticks and the student did the math on the paper by dividing 20 by 5. And got 4. Then he counted out five groups of four. 6. Show the student 12 objects. Tell him/her that this is two-thirds of a box of candy. Ask him/her how many candies were in the whole box and to justify the answer. I gathered 12 popsicle sticks and he did the math in his head and showed me eight popsicle sticks, by putting the sticks in groups of threes. REFLECTION 7. Which models do you think the student understands? What evidence do you have? I think the student had a pretty good understanding of fractions. The only thing I think he had issues with was figure number 3 because the parts werent divided equally. 8. What other questions did you ask to find out what this student understands about fractions? I didnt ask other questions, but I did have him explain most of his answers.

Classroom Observation #1 Sarah Edison 11/6/2013 Place Value About 25 students

1. Would you characterize the teachers focus as attending to procedural or to conceptual knowledge? Explain your characterization. The teacher was using more of a conceptual knowledge basis. She was using blocks, sticks and boxes (as she called them) to show ones, tens and hundreds respectively. She would show a stick of tens and explain how they equaled ten ones and then she would show ten sticks and show how they equaled one box of one hundred. She showed that one block represents one and that a block is one tenth the stick. She also said that one stick is ten times a block. Then she said that one block is one out of ten, which means 1/10. 2. Describe how the teacher engaged the students in the mathematics lesson. The teacher engaged the students during this lesson by using manipulatives that she had projected on the board so everyone could see and get a better sense of what was going on. She asked questions and ask the students to justify their answers. She also intentionally did things incorrectly for the students to correct her. She also came up with word problems using the students names and asking them to come up with an object they liked to help them understand the problem better. For example, she said, Lauren has three candy bars. Kyle has ten times as many. How many does Kyle have? Give me the answer. 3. Describe how the teacher modeled good communication in terms of using clear and complete sentences and correct mathematical terminology. The teacher used terms like ones, tens and hundreds. She showed that the relationship between the stick and the square is times more. She said that the stick is 1/10 of the square. She moved the manipulatives around to help the students grasp the concept. She also reminded the students that a / is the same as a division sign. 4. Describe how the teacher utilized mathematical questions during the lesson. The teacher had the students help her formulate questions that were relevant to the topic. She asked students if they understood and elaborated on anything they didnt fully understand. 5. Describe how the teacher assessed the students mathematical knowledge during the lesson.

The teacher both formally and informally assessed the students during the lesson. She checked for understanding while she was teaching and the students were given a worksheet for independent practice to assess them after the lesson was over. REFLECTION 6. Did the teacher deliver the lesson effectively? Elaborate. I believe the teacher did a good job. I liked that she used the manipulatives to help the students see the problem rather than make them picture it using their imaginations. It made it a lot easier to understand this way. 7. Give a specific example of something the students learned. The students learned that not only does a block represent one unit, but that one block is one out of ten and one out of one hundred. 8. If you were teaching this lesson, what might you do differently? If I were to teach this lesson, I might have given the children manipulatives rather than just use them myself. When the students use them, they have a more hands on experience and it teaches them to remember the concept better.

Classroom Observation #2 Sarah Edison 10/21/2013 Operations with decimals About 25 students 1. Would you characterize the teachers focus as attending to procedural or to conceptual knowledge? Explain your characterization. I would say that the teacher worked more on procedural knowledge. She brushed up on how to say a number in word form and then translate it to number form. She said a number (5,009.94) and then had the students help her write it on the board. She then labeled all the place values. Then she taught the students how to add and subtract two numbers using numbers with decimals. 2. Describe how the teacher engaged the students in the mathematics lesson. The teacher asked the student questions and at times, intentionally wrote down the wrong answer with the goal of having the students correct her. Sometimes the teacher would ask the students how to write a number and other times she would have them walk her through how to add or subtract decimals. 3. Describe how the teacher modeled good communication in terms of using clear and complete sentences and correct mathematical terminology. The teacher used terms such as place values, decimals, difference, sum, addition and subtraction. She was really good at making the students understand how to add and subtract numbers with decimals because of her explantion. 4. Describe how the teacher utilized mathematical questions during the lesson. The teacher asked questions such as: When I say a number with and in it, what does that and represent? How can I write 7,398.38? What place will the number end in if. What does this number like look? 5. Describe how the teacher assessed the students mathematical knowledge during the lesson. The teacher both formally and informally assessed the students during the lesson. She checked for understanding while she was teaching and the students were given a worksheet for independent practice to assess them after the lesson was over. REFLECTION 6. Did the teacher deliver the lesson effectively? Elaborate. I felt that the teacher did a great job teaching this lesson. The students were excited to give their answers and I could see that they really understood the topic.

7. Give a specific example of something the students learned. The students learned how to add and subtract numbers with decimals. 8. If you were teaching this lesson, what might you do differently? If I were teaching this lesson, I might incorporate a number line to help the students grasp the topic better using their visual clues.

Mini-Lesson Sarah Edison 10/28/2013 Multiplication 4 Students 1. The planned activity or lesson. I really didnt plan my lesson. I walked in one day and they told me that the EC teacher was absent and asked me to fill in for her. I sat in the back of the classroom with four struggling students. During this time the students were supposed to be working on a packet of math worksheets to prepare for their upcoming test. Most of the work we did was on multiplication. I simply taught some of the students to multiply two digit numbers because they were skipping a couple of steps. 2. The particular learning strategies you used. Sometimes I modeled how to multiply. Other times, I had the students show me their work so I knew what they were doing wrong. I asked questions about their work to make sure they understood what they were doing. 3. Assessment strategies to determine how well the students learned the material. I checked the students answers, and looked at their work they had shown to make sure they were doing it the right way and getting the right answers. REFLECTION 4. What did you do well in the mini-lesson? I think I did a pretty good job explaining what the students were doing wrong. They seemed to take my criticism well and used it to help them with other problems. 5. What would you do differently if you were to teach this mini-lesson again? Hopefully next time, I will have time to actually plan for the lesson and I would use manipulatives to visually show the students how to work on the problems. 6. Comment on the overall effectiveness of your mini-lesson. The students were smiling and really understanding things at the end. They had used suggestions that I gave and were excited that they finally had someone tell them what they were doing wrong the entire time.

Whole Class Lesson Plan Sarah Edison 10/30/2013 Estimating Multiplication Problems About 25 students Instructional Goal: CCSS.Math.Content.5.NBT.B.5 Fluently multiply multi-digit whole numbers using the standard algorithm. Task(s): The student will solve multiplication problems by focusing on the place value and using estimation. Objective(s): The student will be able to use estimation to pick the closest answer of a multiplication problem. Anticipation: Students may use the following strategies: literally multiplying the numbers, rounding the numbers to the nearest whole number and multiplying, estimating without much thought. Monitoring: Students used all three ways to come up with their answers. Materials/Technology: Copies of the handout, paper, pencils Closure: The student will answer a subtraction ticket out the door and turn it in to the teacher. REFLECTION 1. What were the strengths and weakness of your lesson? Conceptual strengths? Delivery strengths? Conceptual weaknesses? Delivery weaknesses? One of my weaknesses of my lesson was that I didnt use the board enough. I felt I could have written a couple things down as I was talking to help the visual learners in the class. I didnt like teaching this lesson so much because it was confusing. I never liked estimation as a student and I still dont like it today. One of my strengths was asking students questions. I asked lots and lots of questions and had the students justify their answers. 2. What would you do differently if you had to teach this lesson again? Please address here the correction of your weaknesses. I would use the board more to show my work to the students who are visual learners. 3. Do you think this lesson was effective? Why or why not? I think this lesson was effective. The students got the correct answers and they explained their answers and how they got them very well.

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