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.

Phase III: Lisa's Reflection

Assessing Prior Knowledge:

I believe that assessing prior knowledge is very essential to teaching. For our lesson, we did not teach the students the specific concepts due to a time limit but rather had them do the centers. We informed them that our students have learned the concepts of find the rule, fractions, patterns, and measurement prior to the centers and review game. My understanding of assessing prior knowledge didn't necessarily change, but made me realize more how important it is to tap prior knowledge. Without giving students background to the lesson, students will feel lost and will struggle with the concepts being taught. Also, the lessons need to be tied to real life situations so that it has a deeper meaning for the students. For my future teaching experience, I will make sure that my students have a well-developed background knowledge of the content before teaching it. I do not want any of my students to feel stressed or lost EVER in my classroom.

Planning Instruction:

When we made our lesson plan we included a lot of state standards; however, we felt that we covered all of them in our lesson. Since our lesson is meant to be a unit plan, we managed to meet all the state standards. We knew we wanted to do a math lesson and decided to a target grade which was second. We then looked up the state standards to get an idea of what concepts we wanted to include in our lesson. Planning instruction came pretty easily for us because we knew that we wanted to do centers. We felt that when students have centers they learn more than doing worksheets. Having centers, students are working hands-on and interacting. We then planned on having a review game where we would meet our objective which is for students to be able to formulate their own questions generated from math content including fractions, find the rule, measurement and patterns. Students need to be not only problem solvers but also be able to formulate their own questions. This shows that they understand the concepts behind each problem. As a future teacher, planning instruction is very important because without planning what you want to do, you are just asking for a chaotic day. Teachers need to have an organized lesson outlined with everything they plan to do for the lesson.

Designing Instruction:

Designing instruction is what I enjoyed most about planning the lesson. Creating the lesson activities can sometimes be overwhelming but once you have figured out the concepts you want to cover and your objective, you can use your creativity to brainstorm activities that will help accomplish your goals. As I mentioned earlier, we decided to do centers because we felt that it made the students in charge of their own learning. It allowed them to discover the lesson on their own while we facilitated. Throughout this semester, I learned how important it is to design instruction. Students need to be engaged in the lesson in order to create a deeper understanding of the concepts, so teachers need to plan their activities carefully and double check that they are meeting the objectives. In the future, I know I will be spending a lot of time creating lessons that will be meaningful to my students and engaging. I want my students to enjoy the lessons rather than just go through the motions of learning it. I plan on having my classroom be student-centered so that my students are in charge of their own learning.

Planning Assessment:

Throughout this semester, I have learned how important assessment is not only in this class but all my other classes. I have gained a lot of new knowledge about assessment that I believe will help me in the future. Assessment is essential. In order to know if your students truly understand what they are doing, teachers need to have some sort of assessment whether it's formal or informal. I thought that for our lesson, the assessments we chose were prefect. Not too much but not too little. We had a rubric for the overall performance on the math unit, we had students turn in their completed work for assessing, and we had excel sheets to record their performance on the computer game and patterns. For my future experience as a teacher, I need to make sure that I always have some sort of an assessment whether it's a worksheet the students turn in or a test. I need to test their knowledge to make sure I have done my job as a teacher of teaching the concept. By assessing the students, as a teacher I will know if I need to do something different with my lesson or if an individual is struggling. Lessons are either a hit or a miss. The students learn the concept or they don't, it all depends on the teacher and how they implement their lesson.

Instructional Decisions/Teaching:

Each lesson needs to be designed to meet individual needs. There might be some students that are slower learners and need extra time to complete a task and there might be some students that are fast learners and need extra work while waiting on the rest of the class to finish. Modifications are needed to made so that each individual has the equal opportunity to succeed in the classroom. For example, finding the rule computer game might take students the full ten minutes or for those fast learners will take them half the time. In order to avoid misbehavior, the teacher should allow them to play other math games while waiting for others to finish. This way they are always occupied and it will minimize any disruptive behavior. I have learned from this semester that some students finish faster than others so teachers need to have a plan b such as a worksheet for those students to do rather than having them sit and do nothing or running around in the classroom. Also, it is important to keep the lesson aligned with the objective or else the objective or goal will not be met. For my teaching experience, I made sure that all the activities were aligned with the goal in mind. As a future teacher, I plan on always having extra worksheets or puzzles, etc. for those students that finish quickly and to allow enough time at centers for all students to finish and not feel rushed. I will also make activities are aligned with the objectives or else, throw them out and make new ones that will help accomplish meet the goal.

Assessment of Learning:

My whole teaching experience with Lela I felt was very successful. We received all the feedback we had hoped for and everyone was engaged in the centers. I thought we did a great job of aligning the centers to our objective and walking around the classroom for those that need help or have questions. We attended to every student's needs and were able to successfully assess them. Everyone turned in their worksheets and followed instructions as asked. We walked around assessing the pattern center and find the rule center and collected all the completed work including review questions. We had a rubric to assess their overall performance of each task and lesson. Our goal was met which helped assure me that I can do this in the real world. Overall, I thought this was a great experience, especially to get positive feedback from fellow classmates. As a future teacher, I hope to get the same response as I did from this experience. Assessment of learning is essential and can be rewarding when the objectives are met and the students had fun doing it. I can only hope that in my future teaching experience that I reach my goals and at the same time have my students succeed in the classroom.

Pattern Jewelry

Students had to make a pattern necklace or bracelet using these colored beads.

Big Foot Activity

Students had to trace their foot and measure it using different materials. (ruler stick, pennies, paper clips, and base ten blocks)

Candy Fractions

Students had to look at the Hershey bar and and fold their pieces of construction paper into fractions that are represented in the Hershey bar. (1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/12)

Phase II

Instructional Decisions/ Teaching:
Our lesson was geared towards second graders and in order to guarantee that each individual could do all the activities we aligned our centers with Arizona state standards for mathematics. Our centers included the following: Candy Fractions, Find the Rule, Big Foot Activity, and Pattern Jewelry. For the Candy Fractions, students had to look at a Hershey bar and then grab four pre-cut pieces of construction paper and label the fractions like the Hershey bar. For the Find the Rule, the students had to play the game online. Big Foot Activity, they had to trace their foot and measure using a variety of materials (ruler stick, pennies, paper clips, base ten blocks). For the Pattern Jewelry center, students had to create a pattern necklace or bracelet using different colored beads and explain their pattern. Prior to these activities, the students have already learned the math concepts involved (fractions, find the rule, measurement, and patterns). All of these centers had instructions at them for students to follow and materials ready. Also, we allowed ten minutes for each center to make sure that all students would finish each center. We felt that all of our centers were grade appropriate and had them engaged at all times. Our objective for this lesson was that students will be able to formulate their own questions generated from the math content including fractions, find the rule, measurement and patterns. To achieve our goal/objective we had a review game at the end where students were split up into groups and had to formulate a question regarding each center, so they should have a total of four questions to ask when their group was chosen on the wheel of fortune game.


Assessment of Learning

Each center in our lesson was designed to produce a student product to assess.
Students divided and labeled a mock Hershey bar made from construction paper during their time at candy fractions. Students labeled several pieces of construction paper with various fractions. Upon completion of the center teachers collected the Hershey bars to assess the student’s understanding of the content presented in the center. By looking at the Hershey bars we were able to determine if students correctly divided the sections of the Hershey bar and if they were able to correctly label the sections with factions.

As students participated in the find the rule game they received a game generated score. We recorded the student’s score. If students did not receive a hundred percent we encouraged them to repeat the game. By utilizing these ideals from mastery learning we were able to encourage students to further their understanding.

The center making sense of jewelry provided a unique opportunity to have students verbalize their understanding of patterns. Students verbally explained to us the pattern they created with colored beads. By using an excel spread sheet we were able to check off each student after their explanation.

To assess students learning at the big foot center we used a traditional worksheet format. Students were asked to record measurements onto a worksheet. We collected the worksheet to verify student participation at the center.

Our final assessment of student learning was a wheel of fortune game. To engage higher levels of comprehension we asked the students to derive their own questions from the mathematical concepts presented in the centers. Student generated questions were then used in a whole class activity.


Our lesson was very successful. The lesson was well organized which optimized our teaching experience. Activities at the centers were engaging. Having a variety of student activities allowed the classroom to become student centered and we were able to embody the role of facilitators. By teaching the lesson we were able to identify areas that could be improved.

Wheel of Fortune PowerPoint template

Create a Wheel of Fortune PowerPoint review game yourself! Here is the link to find the template along with other fun games: http://www.murray.k12.ga.us/teacher/kara%20leonard/Mini%20T