Sara Brisby

Lesson Study Reflection

1st grade: Recognizing Halves on a Circular Clock Face and
Telling Time to the Half Hour

First Lesson:
Cathe first taught this lesson to her partners class. She chose this topic because it
was something their classes were working on. She showed a video and spent about 5
minutes on it. Students just watched the video. She had a chart on the board so they could
keep track of multiples of 5. She went over counting by the hour and saying, oclock
for every hour. Students called out chorally. Next, students compared a circular/analog
clock and a digital clock. Had a student come write what it would be on the digital clock.
Students had analog clocks on their desks so they could use them while they were going
over time. She also had whiteboards on their desks so students could write the time when
it was half of an hour. They drew a clock and put in times, then had to decide where half
was. Students were called up to board to practice. They had a worksheet she wanted to
get to, but she didnt have time.

Second Lesson:
Cathe with her own class: After viewing and discussing, we thought Cathe should
spend more time on the video. She had the students watch it a few times, then stand up
and practice it. This allowed students to understand it better and get more into it. She
didnt have students use the whiteboards on their own desks because it took too much
time. She felt it went better and she was able to spend more time on the lesson. She could
space it out over more than one day since it was her own class.

Thoughts/whats next:
I think spreading this out over a couple of days is a good idea. Also, not having
the white boards for students to draw a clock on. I dont know 1
st
grade very well, but it
seemed like going from counting by 5s to an hour to a half hour is a lot in one lesson. I
like students having the clocks on their desks to work with, but I wonder if students
should practice as a class first, without the clocks, then go on and use the clocks.


4
th
grade lesson: Equivalent fractions, Comparing Fractions,
Composing Fractions.

First Lesson:
I taught this to another class first. All of the fourth grade classes have worked
with fractions, so this was meant to be a hands on, review lesson. I had to pass out all of
the materials and that was time consuming. I first had students just build something that
was half blue. We had discussed briefly, equivalent fractions and comparing fractions. I
wanted to see what they could do just with simple directions and color tiles. The first
class did a pretty good job. They could see the equivalent fractions built from different
students, but that they were all still half. We were able to get to one task card, and
students could write how the figure was composed to make the whole unit. I ran out of
time because it wasnt my own class, and I had to have someone cover my class. Also,
having students color in their fraction designs took time. I wanted them to be able to see
how their whole unit was composed, but it just took too long.

Second Lesson:
For my second lesson, we decided I should show pictures of things with halves or
other fractions. Students could see a butterfly was half blue and half black, or other things
such as flowers. I moved everything down in the lesson. I also had the manipulatives
passed out before they came into class since it was with my own students. I didnt have
them color in their design on the grid paper because it was difficult for them to even build
something that was one half. A few students were able to create something that was half
blue, but a lot made something that was all blue. I kept asking, What does half blue
mean? Some were able to see that one half could also be three sixths. This was a
struggle for too many students to even move through the lesson. I put some examples on
the Elmo of half and asked students if they were both correct and half blue. I asked
students what it meant to be half of something. A few said words like, equal, two
colors. I pointed this out and looked at some examples. We counted the blue and the
other colors to see if they were equal. The lesson didnt go much further than this because
of the talking, playing, and overall confusion with comparing different peoples
representations of half.

Thoughts/whats next:
I was expecting my class to be amazing at this. We did fractions for 10 weeks. We
started with fraction strips they cut, and I tried to make it all as visual as possible. We did
something similar to this where students needed to make a fraction quilt with a certain
fraction blue and yellow, etc. I thought for sure that after the first time I taught this, and
the pictures I showed for this class, they would understand half needing more than one
color. Once I showed students this, they started to get it. Quite a few were still very
confused. They didnt see that one persons half could be the same as their half. All year
long we have worked on relating fractions to the same unit, and that the change in the
denominator meant a change in the size of the piece. They could describe this, but were
still confused. It didnt dawn on me until meeting with my group. Here, the unit size
changed. When they did an equivalent fraction, and went from to 3/6 or 5/10, the size
of the pieces werent changing because we were using the same size tiles. I wonder if I
had used fraction strips, if it would have made more sense. Also if I had only given them
two colors to use instead of the 4.


Algebra 1 lesson: Graphing Real Data- Rate of Change

First lesson:
This lesson was chosen because Becca and Connie had to teach to grade levels
they didnt teach. They wanted to choose something students would be able to know at
different schools. Both regular teachers said students would know rate of change, but
both Becca and Connie noticed students didnt know what that meant. For Becca, putting
the kids in groups took a bit of time. They were familiar with working in groups, but she
had to move a few people around.

Second Lesson:
After watching Beccas lesson, we decided Connie needed to elicit more
questions from students about the map. The map also needed to be up while the students
came in. Since in Beccas class, students didnt know rate of change, without being told
what that meant, Connie put the formula for rate of change on the board during the
lesson. Connie found students also didnt know rate of change unless reminded what that
meant. They also used just the y data to subtract.
Some students finished graphing pretty quickly so Connie had students predict where
they thought the next point would go.

Thoughts/whats next:
When teaching a grade level that isnt your own, to a class that isnt your own, it
is hard to predict what students will know, how they have learned something, or what
else to do. We cant go in and actually teach rate of change, or know how many students
actually know what that is.