Teaching Money 1

Teaching Money

EDU 2150

Brittney Iverson

November 6, 2017
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INTRODUCTION

For my Service Learning Action Research, I decided to focus on teaching English

Language Learners (ELLs) about money, specifically concentrating on identifying and

counting change. I felt like money was a good starting place especially because the majority of

teachers choose to focus on something related to reading or language arts skills. Although I

agree it is very important for ELLs to have language arts skills, I liked the idea of approaching a

subject matter that is not focused on as often, especially because math subjects are equally

important. To complete my lesson plan, I went and volunteered at Hayden Peak Elementary in

Alisha Chases second grade classroom. I had Alisha pick three ELLs students whose first

language was Spanish.

My goal for this project was to help these students get a better understanding of how to

identify what each coin looked like, the value each coin is worth and how to count them. My

hope was that completing this project would provide these ELL students with a better

understanding of money and I wanted to be able to watch them succeed with the small lesson

that I had planned and that the students would retain the information as well. My history of

working with ELLs include the other times that I have volunteered in Alishas classroom (several

times over the past few years,) however, my previous experiences working with her ELL

students have not been as interactive as this experience. I do feel like taking Education 2150 has

helped me be able to prepare for working with ELL students for my Service Learning hours.

BACKGROUND

For the last two years, I have been volunteering in Alisha Chases second grade

classroom. Although this is my first time working with this specific class, Alishas previous

classes have always included ELL students, and I have had the opportunity to interact with them
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and observe Alishas teaching methods. Going into this class, I made sure that I refreshed my

memory and looked at our class readings regarding ELL students. The readings that are provided

for us are very informative and really do help when you are working with ELL students. It was

important for me to know the history of how ELLs were involved in schools and the different

opportunities that ELL students have. I did have an awareness of these from previous

encounters, and was able to build my knowledge by using some of our previous readings and

incorporating them to figure out the best way to teach these ELL students.

The first article I looked at was by Zaretta Hammond which states, They use memory

strategies to make learning sticky, like connecting what needs to be remembered to a rhythm or

music (thats why we still know the ABC song) or by reciting it in fun ways like a poem, riddle,

or limerick, (2015). I found this statement very important because it helped me recognize that if

we make our lessons fun by incorporating a poem or a song with it, then it will become more

memorable for your students. Zaretta offers three tips for helping make lesson plans more

culturally responsive. It was very informative, and it helped me create my lesson plan.

The second article I looked at was by Paul Gorski. In this article it gave seven of the key

characteristics of a Multicultural Curriculum. This article was helpful because it helped me

prepare for the ways to help teach the ELLs students and how I would be able to best work with

them. The seven key characteristics are:

1. Delivery: must acknowledge and address a diversity of learning styles while challenging

dynamics of power and privilege in the classroom.

2. Content: must be complete and accurate, acknowledging the contributions and

perspectives of all groups.

3. Teaching and Learning Materials: must be diverse and critically examined for bias.
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4. Perspective: Content must be presented from a variety of perspectives and angles in order

to be accurate and complete.

5. Critical Inclusivity: Students must be engaged in the teaching and learning process--

transcend the banking method and facilitate experiences in which students learn from

each other's experiences and perspectives.

6. Social and Civic Responsibility: If we hope to prepare students to be active participants

in an equitable democracy, we must educate them about social justice issues and model a

sense of civic responsibility within the curriculum.

7. Assessment: Curriculum must be assessed constantly for completeness, accuracy, and

bias.

The last article I looked at was by Judie Haynes. Judie provided seven teaching strategies

for teachers of an ELLs classroom. This article helped me, so I knew the best way to teach

my lesson plan and meet the needs of the ELLs students that I was going to teach. I also

found it was important because it will help make my future classroom more multicultural.

The seven strategies are:

1. Provide comprehensible input for ELLs.

2. Make lessons visual.

3. Link new information to prior knowledge.

4. Determine key concepts for the unit and define language and content objects for each

lesson.

5. Modify vocabulary instruction for ELLs.

6. Use cooperative learning strategies.

7. Modify testing and homework for ELLs.

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Reviewing these articles helped me establish what would be the best ways to actually teach

my lesson plan. I learned which methods I was going to use to deliver the information and what

the best ways to teach ELL students are. When I was conducting my lesson plan, I used many of

the ideas and methods from these articles.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RESEARCH CONTEXT

My study was conducted at Hayden Peak Elementary in Alisha Chases second grade

classroom and completed over about fifteen hours of volunteering. There were twenty-five

students in her classroom with ten of them being ELL students. The classroom was well laid out

and there was plenty of room for all of the students in addition to a reading corner and an art

corner. There were also examples, a vocabulary wall, and many posters of encouragement. This

school follows the common core curriculum so all of Alishas plans relate to that.

The first three times I volunteered, I just sat and observed Alisha. I watched her teach and

watched how she interacted with each of her students. The ELL students seemed to have a harder

time grasping some of the content that she would teach so she would sit with each of them

individually until they understood what she was trying to teach them. I thought that this was very

important, she didnt leave these students confused or struggling but instead she helped each of

them until the finally could understand what she was trying to teach them. When I finally started

to gather my data, I would sit with each of the ELL students and read with them or help them

with their math. That is when I decided that I wanted my main focus for this project to be on

math because her ELL students seemed to have more trouble grasping some of the objectives

with math than they did in reading or on their spelling. When selecting students to teach my

lesson plan, Alisha picked three of the ELL students who were struggling with learning coins.
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The lesson plan that I created began with me reading the students a book on money called

The Penny Pot by Stuart J. Murphy. After reading them the book, I taught them a poem about

each coin and how much it is worth, which I found off of 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 1 the poem

goes like this,

Penny, penny, easily spent.

Copper brown and worth one cent.

Nickel, nickel, thick and fat.

Youre worth five cents. I know that.

Dime, dime, little and thin.

I remember, youre worth ten.

Quarter, quarter, big and bold.

Youre worth twenty-five I am told!

The students found this really fun to learn and kept singing it the entire time I was with them.

Next, we looked at the flash cards that I created for this. For each coin I had three index

cards and on each of the cards I had the name of each coin, a picture of it, and how much it was

worth. Since this is the students second time learning about coins, I had them try and answer how

much it was worth before I would show them the flash card, this was for me to see if the book

and the poem helped them. They answered each of the values correctly. Before I made my lesson

plan I learned from Teach Hub, that it is very important to provide ELLs vocabulary when

doing math, that is why I found it so important to make flash cards for this lesson plan.

After we reviewed the flash cards, I had them do an assignment, (which I will attach in

the Appendices section). I picked three different assignments for them to complete, Alisha

helped me find the perfect worksheets that would really help me discover if the students were

able to learn from my lesson plan.

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Since I kept all of these students work anonymous, I didnt need to obtain a permission

slip. However, each student has a permission slip in each of their files, so I didnt need to get

anything from them. I kept my participants safe by keeping all of their work anonymous and all

of the information I have on them private.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

When approaching how to research this I used many different techniques. I observed

Alisha while she taught as well as sought her advice on what the best way to approach my lesson

plan would be and the what would be the best things to teach, which is where we decided that

teaching ELL students money would be the best approach. We decided money because it is

something that everyone uses, and it is so important for them to be able to know what each coin

is, the value of it, and to be able to count it correctly. After I made that decision I began to look

up different techniques on how it is best to teach ELL students, as well as looked at the articles

that were provided for us on our class website.

The data I collected included observing each of the ELL students work and by looking at

their past money assignments that were completed before I taught my lesson plan. I did this by

going into Alishas classroom and volunteering for about two hours. In the two hours that I was

there, the students would work on their morning work and then move on to their math activity,

and while I was there I was able to observe their math time and how Alisha taught the subject.

About a week after I taught my lesson plan, Alisha and myself wanted to make sure that my

lesson plan was successful, so she administered the exact same worksheets to all of her students,

including the ELL students who already completed it. The ELL students that I worked with got

all of the problems right on the worksheets.

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After looking through the data that I collected I feel like my lesson plan was successful

with the ELL students I worked with. Based on the data I collected, the students did better after

my lesson plan then they did on their previous money assignments. They did not forget what I

taught them and were even able to remember the poem I taught, which proves that making

lessons fun and exciting will help students be able to remember what it is that you taught.

DISCUSSION/IMPLICATIONS

I really enjoyed doing this service learning action research. I learned so much while I was

working with Alisha and her ELL students. I found the data I collected as a future teacher very

important. It makes me want to make sure that all of my lesson plans are well thought out and

that they will be able to keep my students attention.

After doing my research, I feel like it will be beneficial to teachers and parents for this

actual planning of lessons to take place. It will be good for teachers to learn this information so if

they dont know helpful ways to help teach ELL students they can learn more helpful ways to

teach their students. It could also be beneficial for the parents because they can understand how

their children are being taught in schools and give them helpful ways to work with them when

they are at home.

From doing this study, I learned a lot of ideas on how I will teach my future students.

Even though my main focus of this study math, I would love to continue to learn different ways

to help my future ELL students. If I ever did a study like this again, I would want it to have

something to do with reading, so I could compare the two studies that I have done.
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CONCLUSION

From conducting research of beneficial ways to help teach ELL students about money in

second grade, I learned that making lesson plans entertaining will make them more memorable

for the students. When I become a teacher, I will definitely be using all of the techniques that I

have learned from this experience and bring them into my own classroom. I know that they are

good techniques because of the success that I witnessed from this project. My experience was

truly amazing, and I really enjoyed working at Hayden Peak Elementary. I hope that in the

future I can continue to go to Hayden Peak for any of my other volunteer hours.
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References

Hammond, Z. (2015, April 1). 3 Tips to Make Any Lesson More Culturally Responsive. Cult of

Pedagogy. Retrieved from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/culturally-responsive-

teaching-strategies/

Gorski, P. (n.d.). Key Characteristics of a Multicultural Curriculum. EdChange Project.

Retrieved from http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/curriculum/characteristics.html

Haynes, J. (2010). Seven Teaching Strategies for Classroom Teachers of ELLs.

Heskett, T. (n.d.). How to Teach Math to English Language Learners. Teach Hub. Retrieved

from http://www.teachhub.com/teaching-math-to-english-language-learners

Carissa. (2008, January 8). Inspired Ideas- Money Lapbook. 1 plus 1 plus equals 1. Retrieved

from http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/2008/01/inspired-ideas-money-lapbook/
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APPENDICES
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