This lesson was yet another mathematics lesson about three digit numbers, this time, comparing and contrasting their values using inequality symbols. Students were allowed to work with their journals to model their thinking, yet I think the first delta we can talk about is how much they were allowed to use place value mats as pictoral modeling for their thinking. They could have obtained these materials earlier on in the lesson so that during the concept development, they could have followed along with me on the SMARTboard. In the video, I noticed something that I did not pick up on mid-lesson. For the students who finished with activities early, there was very little enrichment for them to be able to continue working. Something that can be done next time for enrichment activities would be to create a set of bonus questions to be shown on the projector for students who finish early, or to look at some Kagan structures which alleviate down-time and increase peer-peer communication. As far as questioning patterns go, I could use some more tools in my teacher toolkit. I sometimes accidentally find myself as Teacher A, calling on one student at a time as I pose a single question of content caliber. Ask the question first, give about 30 seconds for think time, and then use students names so they don't feel singled out. Something I noticed myself doing in the video was calling on students by name before I asked a H.O.T. question. This put them on the spot and made them noticeably nervous. As a pre-service teacher, you hear stories where the teacher says "What was I doing to those poor children." Many examples in the video show students being nervous, so I feel like an area that I can improve would be helping students feel comfortable midst all of the high level academic work I as the teacher have planned for them.
As far as the math in the lesson goes, it was beneficial for them to work with these numbers at this pace since the end-of-unit test is coming up, on top of MAP testing for mathematics coming up in April. Before jumping to the 17 more than _____ is _____ question, it might have been good to stick with 1, 10, and 100 more/less than since the homework was a chart that asked students to perform these functions specifically. It had 5 random numbers across the top with 6 categories for 1, 10, 1nd 100 more/less than for each number going vertical. Another area of improvement that I noticed was the level of volume students were sharing their ideas with when it was time for them to share with their partners. The headmaster of the school made a comment during in-service that the level of volume appropriate for efficient Kagan structures that she had seen in classrooms recently had declined in a positive way. I feel this is something that we can work on so that if she steps into our classroom during a lesson, she can say good things about us as well. One thing that I did well was to compliment students on the good things I heard as a teacher as I was circulating around. This made me feel good, and I bet it helped the students feel more comfortable as well, since math is one of their least favorite subjects.
As far as the math in the lesson goes, it was beneficial for them to work with these numbers at this pace since the end-of-unit test is coming up, on top of MAP testing for mathematics coming up in April. Before jumping to the 17 more than _____ is _____ question, it might have been good to stick with 1, 10, and 100 more/less than since the homework was a chart that asked students to perform these functions specifically. It had 5 random numbers across the top with 6 categories for 1, 10, 1nd 100 more/less than for each number going vertical. Another area of improvement that I noticed was the level of volume students were sharing their ideas with when it was time for them to share with their partners. The headmaster of the school made a comment during in-service that the level of volume appropriate for efficient Kagan structures that she had seen in classrooms recently had declined in a positive way. I feel this is something that we can work on so that if she steps into our classroom during a lesson, she can say good things about us as well. One thing that I did well was to compliment students on the good things I heard as a teacher as I was circulating around. This made me feel good, and I bet it helped the students feel more comfortable as well, since math is one of their least favorite subjects.