Erin Percacciolo

April 27, 2014

Dr. Wilson
Reflection #3
My first lesson observation in my second placement went as smoothly as it
could. Seeing as though my students are preparing for the fourth grade New York
State Mathematics Assessments, Mrs. Assatly told me what she wanted me to teach.
Knowing that this is a stressful time of year for many teachers I wanted to ensure
that Mrs. Assatly knew she could jump in and intervene wherever she felt it was
necessary. With that being said, the lesson had a team-taught feel to it.
Mathematics isnt exactly my forte, especially decimals and fractions.
However, Mrs. Assatly made me feel very comfortable in front of the classroom. She
ensured I was prepared by giving me the Teachers Guide, corresponding textbook
pages, and workbook pages two days prior to assist me in preparing my lesson.
Although the lesson was short, I thought it was successful.
I chose to use the white boards with this mathematics lesson because I had
previously observed it was an effective way to keep the students engaged. By using
the white boards it gave students a sense of independence. They were able to take
their time in answering the problem and display it for me when they were done. If I
had observed that something was off, they could quickly backtrack their steps and
redo the problem.
As I went through the slides on the PowerPoint and posed questions to the
students I noticed that in some spots, the answers were already there. Mrs. Assatly

had thrown the PowerPoint together for me that morning using a district resource
she has, which corresponds with the Singapore Math curriculum. Neither of us
caught the fact that the answers were already on the slides for the students.
Regardless, I still had the students do the math and vertically align the problem to
ensure they understand why the problem had to be set up in a particular way.
The students grasped the concept rather quickly. I stressed the importance of
setting up their addition problems with decimals in a vertical format to ensure they
carry the decimal down. I also emphasized how important it is to carry in
mathematics when adding with decimals. The students did the problem examples
on the SMARTboard and upon the completion of the sixth problem they were
directed back to their desks to complete the corresponding workbook pages.
I chose to work with one student who had just moved here from Japan. She
had struggled the day before when we completed mathematics work associated
with the rounding of decimals and converting fractions to decimals. Due to the fact
that she spoke little English, I wanted to ensure that she understood the lesson and
grasped the concept.
I was responsible for ensuring that these students understood how to add
decimals in preparation for the NYS Mathematics exams. I felt that at the conclusion
of the lesson, that goal was achieved. The students remained engaged and behaved
throughout majority of the lesson. Through completion of the workbook pages they
demonstrated their newly obtained knowledge of how to properly add decimals
using a vertical format.