EDUC 461: TWS #7

Instructional Decision Making

Jankouskas

Unit Synapsis:
This math unit contained instruction on place values, comparing/ordering numbers, estimating,
vocabulary, and basic arithmetic. The lessons designed for this unit were created in a way to be flexible.
I am not very good at following a script therefore the lessons for this unit only contained a few question
examples for the instructor to ask in order to guide students. The major instructional decisions that
deviated from one of the lesson plans was the addition of questioning either prior to the lesson, during
the lesson, or within the wrap-up of a lesson. When planning this unit I accounted for two possible
reteach days, with the fourteenth day being the unit exam (post-assessment).
If I retaught this unit I would add a second place value lesson due to the fact that it had to be
retaught following the during-assessment. I would also give more students individualized instruction
because that worked very well for my low achieving student who achieved a B on his/her unit exam.
Reflection of Unit:
After reviewing the pre-assessment data I decided to focus on the vocabulary as a means of
communicating our ideas during math class. I would speak in the vernacular and would also expect the
students to do the same. If a student answered a question, but did not use the vocabulary introduced in
this unit such as; operation, comparison, greater than, less than, etc. I would ask a guided question that
would force the student to answer using the vocabulary word required. As a class we talked about this
on the second day of our unit. We discussed that we would pronounce numbers correctly, specifically
not using the word and unless dealing with a decimal. As a class we also decided that is was best to
speak like mathematicians in order to retain the vocabulary that was going to be tested.
Once the during-assessment data was reviewed I noticed that students either aced the
vocabulary or performed slightly below a C average. I made a note of these students who still
struggled with the math terms and I asked them during every review and wrap-up of each lesson to give
me a vocabulary term and an example of one. On the during-assessment what showed to be the most
difficult for students was ordering and comparing two or more numbers using greater than, less than,
or equal to. This went back to their instruction on place values. Many students simply did not
understand what made a number greater than another. Therefore we discussed as a class what
students were struggling with and what they thought they were struggling with. During this discussion
many students agreed that place value mastery still eluded. I added a lesson on place values in order to
solidify the process of determining place values. This seemed to help dramatically from during to postassessment.
After the post-assessment I asked the students how they now felt about place values,
ordering/comparing numbers, and using basic arithmetic to solve equations. Most students said they
thought it was all super easy, while other quieter students needed prodding to answer. These
students collectively admitted to having difficulty with word problems and data gathering problems.
This was very evident on the post-assessments, and not very surprising because those types of problems
require a higher level of application, not just memorizing/remembering.

EDUC 461: TWS #7

Instructional Decision Making

Jankouskas

Low, Medium, and High Student Collaboration:

Low:
During each lesson there was a section of time set aside for independent work. During this
fifteen to twenty minute period I would assist struggling students. My low student is in extended
resource which means regardless I will be visiting his desk and assisting where he/she needs.
Throughout the unit this student received the most attention from me because this student is the only
resource student in math. I discussed with this student almost on a daily basis that they should not rush
and to remind the student that when dealing with place values you want to start from the left and
move right. It is just like reading. Once reminded of this student #17 usually was able to complete
most if not all of his/her independent work.
Medium:
This student received less attention from me during instruction and independent time because I
wanted to see the results of only the instruction. Looking back at the results I should have worked with
this student in the same way I did with student #17. Student #7 and I did discuss performance after the
during-assessment. He/she did well on the place values, comparing, and order, but poorly on estimating
and basic arithmetic. I suggested that the student have a parent check their homework after they had
completed it. The anomaly came when the students homework was correct almost every day, but on
the test only achieved a C. I talked to the student after the post-assessment and he/she said that they
get very nervous on tests, and felt that he/she forgot how to round and dissect word problems. If I were
to reteach this unit with a student similar to student #7 I would definitely assist this student as I did with
student #17.
High:
Student #6 performed extremely well on the pre-assessment. This student knew their place
values and how to order and compare numbers. The section this student struggled with was the
estimation portion. I asked the student how they knew what place values were what, but then could
not round to the nearest ten-thousand. This student had forgotten that when you have a five in the
thousands that you move up in the ten-thousand place one. After this short performance review and a
few lessons this student achieved a one hundred percent on the during-assessment. The only
conversation we had after this assessment was me congratulating him/her. After this students score
dropped on the last assessment I sat down with him/her. The student had missed two questions that
dealt with the same graph. These questions were two steps where the first step you had to convert
years to months and the second step was the arithmetic. This student did not read the directions
carefully enough to realize he/she needed to convert before the arithmetic. Our decision to fix the
problem was for the student to slow down. I told him/her that they were not allowed to be the first
person to turn in a test for the rest of the nine week interim period.

Adjusted Lessons Based on Formative Assessments:

After the pre-assessment was reviewed and after our class discussion about the results we
decided to use the vocabulary in order to mastery the vernacular required for this unit. Therefore, every
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EDUC 461: TWS #7

Instructional Decision Making

Jankouskas

lesson, and every section of a lesson students were required to speak as a mathematician would. I
also made a note of how students struggled with place values and thus comparing numbers using
greater than, less than, and equal to. This enlightened me into making sure we had Unifix cubes for
every lesson. We used these to represent the two numbers thus giving the students a visual of both
numbers, making it very easy to tell which one was greater. My third change to my original plan was to
make group competitions every now and then in order to build teamwork and to have early finishers
assist stragglers. This would hopefully allow early finishers to attain mastery while giving slower paced
students or special needs students another perspective on the material.
After the during-assessment I decided to go back over and reteach one of the place value
lessons. This was because the scores of the majority were very poor/underachieving. I tried to reteach
this lesson in the most opposite way possible while still maintaining accuracy with the subject matter. In
this lesson I used a lot of student examples and participating very little in the discussion. At first I was
forced to provide guided questions, but after about half of the students grasped the concept I was able
to let those students teach the struggling students, and discover the answers as a class. This proved to
be very effective with one half of the class mastering the material that day, and the other attain a
respectable level of retention. I think that this review/reteach lesson was the reason that no student
failed the unit exam because this lesson had the most collaborative and hands-on instruction where
students were showing other students with models to defend their conclusions.
I did not change too many things during lessons other than minute details. If during a particular
lesson students grasped the content quicker than another lesson I would have the students walk me
through the second example in the book when normally I would walk them through and then on the
guided practice they would assist me. The opposite was also true. If students were struggling we would
sometimes go into the independent practice as a class. For this I would use guided questions, making
sure to use the vocabulary to activate prior knowledge, in order to have students walk me through each
problem. If I as a class we went into the independent work I made sure to ask each student a part of the
process in determining each problem. This became very repetitive, but I think as a whole students
retained the information effectively because it was so outlandishly repetitive. During one specific lesson
I stopped the momentum of the class and had them create a chart for place values in their math
notebooks. We used the number 123,456,789. Underneath each number we wrote its specific place
value; example, 1 = hundred-millions. Then underneath each section of three numbers we wrote the
last names; example, 456 = thousands, 789 = hundreds. This refers to how you pronounce the number.
You would say one hundred twenty-three million (last name), four hundred fifty-six thousand (last
name), seven hundred eighty-nine. As a class we color coded each section including the last names. I
created my own on chart paper with the students to use as an anchor chart. Each lesson I had a few
guiding questions written down as examples, but most lessons I created questions as I taught. This
allowed the lessons to flow more naturally. Often times I used all questions I had written down, but
most lessons I asked many more to students, especially during the review and wrap-up.

Expectations Adjusted:
To start the unit I expected students to be able to answer a variety of questions with 100%
accuracy by the end of the unit. This did not change at any point during the unit, however expectations
during the unit were adjusted to certain extents. After the first lesson on place values I realized that
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EDUC 461: TWS #7

Instructional Decision Making

Jankouskas

only one lesson on this topic was not enough instruction for the teacher to expect 100% accuracy from
the students. After adding the second lesson on place values my expectation of 100% accuracy was
resumed.
I like to usually have very high expectations for students. I think that a goal/expectation should
be placed at the very highest achievement possible. All of my lessons within this unit have a degree of
100% accuracy by the end of the lesson. If taught again I would change the first lesson on place value to
90% accuracy then have the second lesson the following day. The second lesson would have a degree of
100% accuracy. I would do this based on my student scores in this unit for future math units on this
topic. I think that the concept of place values is very specific and somewhat abstract as well as involving
a level of application that early fourth grade students are not used to. This I think means that extra
instruction is required before an instructor can expect mastery.