Order of Operations

As every teacher knows, reflecting on lessons is the best way to improve your practice. In my
lesson about the order of operations I found many ways to improve the lesson, even from the first class,
which is the lesson recorded, to my second class which I teach the same lesson to.

I began the lesson with “My Favorite No”, a math routine in which I have the students solve a
problem on a notecard and I sort out which ones are correct, “yes”, and which ones are incorrect “no”. I
then choose my favorite “no” which I choose by a common and understandable error that the students
made and model the misconception to the class. I then model the correct way to solve the problem, and
the correct answer. This worked really well with the order of operations since there are many possible
answers. A majority of the notecards were a “no” which shows the students needed the lesson, but I
realized soon after why they needed this lesson and it wasn’t because they don’t know the order of
operations, it was because they don’t recognize the importance of using the order of operations in
EVERY math problem.

One way I would improve my lesson would be to focus more on the fact that we don’t only use
the order of operations when we are doing an order of operations worksheet, we use the order of
operations for every math problem. I didn’t recognize that the student main problem with order of
operations was that it is not yet an instinct for them to use it. The activity was still helpful for solidifying
the steps, some students also struggled with completing the steps correctly.

Another way I would improve this lesson is to focus more on how calculators do not know the
order of operations. I should have modeled with the calculator on the screen and shown how when I
complete the problem it’s a different answer. In the second class I taught I made these changes and felt
the overall lesson went better.

In my lesson used “I do, we do, you do” before moving onto individual work time for the in-class
activity. This worked well and I was happy with the number of problems I used, if I would have used any
more, I think the students would have lost focus. It’s a challenge to have fifth graders sit and listen so
the more you can have them working on their own the better.

One thing I have mixed feelings about was that I had three separate in-class practice sheets, a
low, medium and high. This is awesome for differentiation but crossing out some of the more difficult
problems for students who have an IEP or are in Special Education would be a good way to differentiate
and would be more efficient and easier to manage. Then I could narrow it down to just one main in-class
activity, some crossed out for certain students, and a “challenge” activity.

The lesson was fine overall, and I made a few adjustments for my next class which did improve
it. The best way to find faults in a lesson is to teach it and see the results and shortcomings and make
adjustments from there.