Phase III: Lela's reflection

Phase III: Lela’s reflection
Assessing prior knowledge
Realistically assessing prior knowledge is very difficult when teaching to your peers. When this lesson is presented to second graders the teacher must make sure that students have been introduced to the mathematical content before. Students will need to understand how to correctly write a fraction for the candy fractions center. Students will also need to know basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division skills to participate in the find the rule game. Students will need a basic understanding of measurement units for the big foot game. Students should have worked with patterns before they participate in the making sense of jewelry center. This lesson will work great for a review in the classroom. As students participate in the centers a teacher has the opportunity to observe their understanding of several mathematically concepts. This would allow a teacher to review any concepts that the students do not fully understand.
Planning Instruction
Using centers allowed the planning of instruction to go smoothly. It was easier to plan several small activities rather than one large activity. The timing of the centers needs to be more functional. Some students were done at the centers before they could move on. In the future I would have an activity students could work on during the wait time. To create a more student centered environment students could move through the centers at their own pace.
Planning Assessment
By utilizing student products from each center it was easy have an ongoing assessment of their understanding of the mathematical concepts. We created a game for the end of the lesson which was meant to cover all concepts presented during center time. The wheel of fortune game was designed to utilized student generated question. Requiring students to create their own questions engages students in higher order thinking.
Instructional decisions and teaching
Students were engaged in the tasks presented in the centers which made classroom management easy. The student centered environment allowed us to monitor students at a very one on one basis. The centers did not require us as teachers to be delivering content to the students. Since the lesson was designed as a review it leaves the question of how the original delivery of the content could also be student centered.
Assessment of learning
I found that the artifacts created during the lesson were not as helpful in determining student learning as the one on one time spent with them during the lesson. We were able to facilitate the students learning as it was happening. We could also clarify questions with immediate feedback. The students were able to generate excellent question from the concepts presented at each center.