Claire Mracek

3.1 Classroom Management & Collaborative Learning

Candidates model and facilitate effective classroom management and collaborative
learning strategies to maximize teacher and student use of digital tools and resources.
(PSC 3.1/ISTE 3a)
Reflection
I created this lesson plan project as a blended unit of study for fourth grade math
students. I worked alongside a fourth grade teacher to implement this unit. Throughout
the blended unit, students explored estimation and multiplication using large numbers.
Standard 3.1 states that the candidate models and facilitates effective classroom
management and collaborative learning strategies to maximize teacher and student use
of digital tools and resources. This project models and facilitates effective classroom
management strategies by providing students with a structured and engaging unit of
study. This project is designed to use class time more effectively by providing
instructional videos for students to view from home before coming to class. In this way,
students have more class time to engage in projects and activities, as well as ask the
teacher specific questions related to the content. Often times, students come to class
prepared with questions about the material making them more prepared for math class.
While watching the instructional videos from home, students participate in collaborative
learning strategies, such as shared notetaking in Google Docs. Students notes,
questions, and feedback are recorded on a collaborative document so the teacher may
view each students thoughts at any time. During this project, students created their own
instructional video to showcase their understanding of the partial products multiplication
algorithm. Each student chose the multiplication problem they wanted to share, they
planned each scene of their video, reviewed their scripts with partners, and helped each
other to record their own videos. These videos were then displayed on the class website
for peers to view and leave positive feedback.
Through this project, I learned that students need structure and repetition through the
beginning of blended studies. I would absolutely recommend this project to other
teachers. I would highly advise teachers to give students ample time to storyboard and
plan their video scripts, as this is where true analysis and evaluation take place. I believe
this project worked so well because students have seen multiple instructional videos
leading up to this lesson, and they were able to analyze those and use effective elements
to create their own. This project also worked well with fourth graders because of their
technological skills and prior experience with Google Apps. This project could be
adapted, though, to meet the needs and interests of younger students, too. This project
required students to become the teacher and own their own learning, which can be
applied across curricula.
This lesson was extremely meaningful for students and directly impacted their learning of
multiplication strategies. This project challenged students to explore the partial-product
algorithm through a robust process of analysis, evaluation, and creation. The students

developed such a well-rounded understanding of this strategy and were able to identify
quickly when they did not understand a step of the process. Through this project, I was
able to coach a teacher through video creation and blended learning experiences,
improving her understanding of twenty-first century teaching practices. We hope to gift
these videos to the third grade classes to use during their intro to partial-products lessons.
We see this project as a supreme collaboration tool between grade levels.