Laura Wipf TIE535: C4 November 9, 2012

TPA Task 2: Instruction Commentary Template

I chose to analyze a video of a math lesson that I taught where students had to use coins to find the total cost of two items given in a word problem. 1. In the instruction seen in the clip(s), describe strategies you used to engage students in learning tasks to develop skills and strategies to comprehend or compose text. a. Cite examples of strategies aimed at engaging all your students and examples aimed at engaging specific individuals or subgroups. If you described any of these fully in the lesson plans or the planning commentary, just reference the relevant description. I began my lesson (derived from Everyday Mathematics) by introducing how some math equations can be broken down into parts, the addends, and totals. I displayed a part-and-total diagram on the document camera. The focus for the day was calculating the total price for various pairs of items. Since it was Halloween, I wanted to make the lesson relevant to the holiday so I used examples such as a caramel apple that cost 25 and a ghost cookie for 15. I called on students to tell me which coins I would need to buy each item. Then, I placed those coins on the part portion of the partand-total diagram. Lastly, we added all of the coins together to find the total cost. Throughout the other examples, I used strategies such as cold calls, student volunteers, and whole class chanting (for counting coins) to engage the students.

After my demonstration, I passed out a part-and-total diagram to each student, along with coin manipulatives. This time, we worked on breaking down word problems to find the parts that we needed to add, along with the total cost of the Halloween items listed. I think that this hands-on approach was beneficial because it gave students a tangible way to solve word problems that can often be difficult to comprehend. b. How did these strategies reflect students academic or language development, social/emotional development, or cultural and lived experiences? By modeling how to break down addition problems into parts and totals, this gave students the opportunity to physically see the addends because we used coin manipulatives. Everyday Mathematics often uses its own terminology so I used that throughout the lesson (such as part-and-total). I think that the students caught on since I used this mathematical language repeatedly for each example.

2. Cite examples of language supports seen in the clip(s) to help your students understand that content and/or participate in literacy discourse central to the lesson. a. How did these strategies reflect students varying language proficiencies and promote their language development? At different points throughout the lesson, we reviewed the values of certain coins. I used tactics such as counting out loud, restating the value of a coin, and stating the strategy, such as add it all together. An example of how I promoted language development was when I did a think-aloud during one of the problems. During the worksheet activity, I said Joemya bought Halloween candy for 15, I know thats one of my parts. What coins could I use that equal 15?...Aniya said a dime and a nickel equal

15. I think that this modeling approach helps drill in the math vocabulary such as quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies, parts, and total.

3. Describe strategies for eliciting student thinking and how your ongoing responses further their learning. Cite examples from the clip(s). Again, by thinking aloud while teaching, I modeled how to process each problem. When a teacher does a step-by-step demonstration, it breaks down the problem into manageable chunks. Towards the end of the video, I said, What coins could I use to show 30? Brian said 3 dimes. Lets see, 10, 20, 30. I tried to demonstrate what Brian may have been thinking before he stated his answer. I believe that is important for students to be aware of their own metacognition. 4. Reflection a. Reflect on students learning of concepts and academic language as featured in the video clip(s). Identify both successes and missed opportunities for monitoring all students learning and for building their own understanding of skills and strategies for comprehending and/or composing text. It is difficult to monitor the steps and behaviors of 28 students while doing any whole group activity. I noticed that they were a few students who were able to find the total cost for each problem without using the coins. Others lacked a basic knowledge of how to even add coins. Throughout the lesson, I tried to walk/look around to ensure that each student was keeping up with my demonstrations. However, I know that I did not observe everyone. b. If you could do it over, what might you have done to take advantage of missed opportunities or to improve the learning of students with diverse learning needs and characteristics?

I understand that I am supposed to teach my lessons at a second grade instructional level. Yet, there are many students who lack basic number sense. If I could do this lesson over, I would make a worksheet with smaller addends for the lower students to complete during the independent work time (not shown in the video). I might also add a portion for partner work. Here, I could pair struggling learners with those who have a good grasp on adding money. In addition, we recently created small groups for math in our classroom. During these pullouts, I will be able to work with those who need extra help.