Ashley King

Math Lesson and Reflection

Evaluation

To check for student mastery of my objectives, I plan to check the correctness of the written work

and measure the intensity of their participation. I will look for each student to reach at least 80%

accuracy on the worksheet that I give them following the lesson. For students who struggle with

the work sheet and activities, I will form a small group to give these students a more individual

based instruction. Another way that I will know if the lesson is successful is if the students are

actively engaged during the lesson. For example, if most of the students are answering discussion

questions, raising their hand, playing the game, and completing the worksheet. I will know that

the lesson will positively impact student learning by preparing a lesson that reaches out to all

learners. Specifically, ELL students, visual students, hands-on students, gifted and talented

students, etc. Students will learn a skill that will broaden their quickness of reciting math facts.

Technology

A way that I plan to use technology during this lesson is by using the smartboard in the classroom.

I plan to use the smartboard to introduce the students to a new theory (turn-around rule) by rolling

virtual dice to create numbers so that the students can write 2 turn-around facts on their

whiteboards; I will model and have students participate in writing number sentences on the

smartboard. If possible, the students may access visual dice on their board during the activity

instead of rolling the physical dice. Since I plan to grade the worksheet given to the students

following the lesson, I will also inquire about uploading the grades onto the online database that

my cooperating teacher uses. I will also send photos to the students’ parent’s via Remind 101 of

the students participating during the math activity.

Research/Evidence of student learning

I will use data to monitor students’ progress towards the learning goal by assessing their

participation in the activities, as well as their worksheet and involvement in the Kagan Strategy.

Group performance will satisfy me if most of the students are engaged in the discussion and paying

attention. Specifically, asking questions and offering answers/thoughts. The students at this point

in the year are very familiar with the idea of adding two addends to reach a product. They have

been learning different strategies to make math a more fluent skill. Because of this, I will push

their cognitive thinking skills during this lesson; overall, I feel as though because of their prior

skill-set, the strategy shouldn’t be extremely challenging for them. They have the background as

well as the vocabulary to make sense of this strategy. Their social skills cause the students to be

very prideful in their ability to offer answers; this will be a positive thing for me, as I will have

more of a chance to assess the students. Some students are more emotional than others, so it will

be important to give them honest, but softer criticism when correcting them (especially aloud).

Differentiation

During my lesson, higher order thinking skills will be incorporated by asking the students to

explain their answers and analyze things such as the difference between two number sentences.

This involves the students in thinking more critically rather than fact-based questions. The

activities in the lesson make the students use multiple levels of thinking but at different times.

What I mean is that during the dice activity, the students were having to create number sentences

and solve the problems. During the worksheet, the students were having to list and solve. During

the Kagan Strategy, the students were having to recall facts and analyze if their partner’s answers

were correct or not. In my classroom, I have no ELL students. If I did have ELL students, I could
have assisted the student in learning the vocabulary term “turn-around strategy” by physically

modeling the turn-around strategy using objects. I might have also printed out a sheet with the

terms written in both languages so that he is able to have a guide/resource that is useful to him. I

could have also made sure to draw pictures next to the vocabulary and used models very often to

make sure he was able to have two different models to rely on. Besides that, I modeled

differentiation by including that I could assess the student who struggles with writing by having a

conversation with them to hear their thinking while other students worked on the whiteboards.
Lesson Plan Template

Date: October 22, 2018

Topic Addressed: Commutative Property of Addition (“the turn-around rule for addition”)

SC Standard: 2.NSBT.5 Add and subtract fluently through 99 using knowledge of place value

and properties of operations

Objective: The student will be able to add fluently through 99 using knowledge of the

Commutative Property of Addition.

Materials Needed: Virtual Dice, Smartboard, Class set of whiteboards/markers, Worksheet,

Student Laptops, dice

Time: 80 minutes

Introduction: (5-10 minutes)

The teacher will begin by mentioning that the previously discussed strategy was known as

double facts. The teacher will explain that the students are slowly adding onto their list of

strategies that help become fluent mathematicians. The teacher will ask: “Can anyone remind me

what we learned about our double fact strategy?” Then, she will call on a student to answer the

question; the student should say something similar to: The double fact strategy is when we make

an addend a double and add the remainder to reach the product. The student should be

approached with something like: “Great job, I can see that you were paying attention!” The

teacher will explain that today they are going to learn a new strategy that can help them with

addition. The property is called the Commutative Property of Addition; in this lesson, it will be

introduced as the Turn-Around Fact strategy. The students will repeat the name of the property
with the teacher so that can get a sense of what it feels like to say it. The teacher will mention its

importance to learn this strategy: to become fluent mathematicians and be able to recognize

number sentences quickly.

During: (40 minutes)

The teacher will introduce the content to the students by first writing the definition of the

property. The teacher will write: “Turn-Around Strategy: adding any two numbers in any order

result in the same sum” on the board for the students to view. Underneath, the teacher will write

the example: 3 + 4 = 7 and 4 + 3 =7. The students will copy this into their addition strategy

worksheet (a sheet they previously have been accumulating math strategies on) in their math

journals. After the students have time to copy this down into their journals, the teacher will

display a domino on the smartboard. The teacher should make sure that all students can see the

board. The domino will have 6 dots on one side and 5 on the other. Underneath the domino, the

teacher will write the corresponding math problem. So, in this case, 6 + 5 = 11 domino dots will

be displayed underneath the domino. The teacher will explain to the students that she wrote the

math problem in this order because it aligned with the dots. The two addends formed together

create the product. The teacher will also mention the importance of putting the unit “Domino

Dots” after the product so that we are able to tell what the unit is, since this is also a requirement

in second grade standards. After this, the teacher will display the same domino but flipped. So,

now the math number sentence will say 5 + 6 = 11. The teacher will ask the students: “What is

the main difference between the two number sentences?” “Can you explain why the addends are

in different orders, but the product is the same?” These questions will target higher order

thinking and problem solving within the students. The students should be able to tell the teacher,
from using the strategy, that the only difference is the order of the addends. The students will be

working out loud in a group setting with me as the discussion leader during this activity.

After most students seem to be comfortable with the idea of the property, the teacher and

students should move on to practicing the property as a group. To do this, the teacher will

instruct that the students have their whiteboards and markers with them on their assigned seat on

the carpet. The teacher will explain to the students that she will be rolling two virtual dice. When

the numbers are displayed on the dice, the students are to use the 2 numbers to write both turn-

around facts. The numbers will be totally random, but some examples are:

 3 and 2 displayed on die. Students should write 3 + 2 = 5 and 2 + 3 = 5.

 5 and 3 displayed on die. Students should write 3 + 5 = 8 and 5 + 3 = 8.

The teacher will do the first example with the students. The teacher will observe as the students

work through the problems, noting students who struggle as a form of informal assessment. The

teacher will tell the students to lay their boards down upside down whenever they are finished.

When most of the class is finished working, the teacher will ask them to hold their boards up so

that she is able to assess the accuracy of their answers. The teacher will tell students that

whenever she gives them a thumb up, that they may erase their boards. After the teacher has

checked all student’s boards, she will write the final answer on the smart board using the

students’ verbal guidance and ask students to explain their answers. For a student who is not as

able to write as well, the teacher might pay special attention to him during this time so that he is

able to walk me through some of his ideas so that the teacher is able to assess where he stands on

the skill in another way that reading his board. After repeating the exercise many times with

many different sets of numbers, the teacher will instruct the students to move back to their desks

where they will work with their shoulder partners on a worksheet; these partners are already pre-
chosen according to overall academic stamina. The worksheet will allow the students to put their

knowledge of the turn-around property to work. The worksheet is attached to the lesson plan.

The students will have to roll 2 dice and list the cooperating addition facts and then their turn

arounds next to it.

 For example: Student rolls a 6, and a 4, then would write 6 + 4 = 10. In the turn-

around column, student will write 4 + 6 = 10.

During this activity, students may use the Virtual Dice website program that they are familiar

with in order to roll their numbers that way. If technology is an issue or the students are spending

too much time using the program, the teacher should enforce the physical dice.

After: (15-20 minutes)

The students will do a Kagan strategy to share their knowledge with others. The students will do

“Think-Pair-Share.” During this activity, the students will randomly group up in pairs and quiz

each other on different turn-around facts. For example, I will demonstrate with a student:

Student A: 6 + 2 = 8

Student B: The turn-around fact is 2 + 6 = 8!

The teacher should walk around and give social support to the students who do not want to

participate in the conversation with their peers. The teacher might say something like, “So what

are we talking about over here?” and encourage conversation between the couple.

After the strategy, the teacher will ask the students: “After learning what we learned about the

“Turn-around strategy”, how do we think this property is useful in allowing us to do math

fluently?” The students should answer something similar to: It allows us to know two problems

at once or allows us to quickly answer new addition facts that we may have memorized the turn-

around for. The teacher will explain to the students that this will assist in us being able to learn
new properties and being able to do math quickly and fluently. The teacher will assess the

students by observing their participation during the whiteboard activity. For example, if the

students are accurate or trying to understand the strategy during the activity. The teacher will

also assess the students by grading their worksheet for accuracy and listening to their discussions

with one another during their think-pair-share.

Lesson Planning Process Reflection:

When referring to this math lesson, I think that my lesson planning process was

successful. Of course, there are things that I need to improve. Considering the way I will assess

students, the technology I will use, and recognizing differentiation before I planned the lesson

definitely helped me understand the route my lesson was going to take prior to teaching it.

If I were to change anything, I would change the questions I asked my students.

According to my cooperating teacher’s evaluation, I need to ask more critical questions to

students during my lesson to push students into understanding the rationale of the lesson. During

my lesson planning, I had mostly considered the questions needed to ask the students in order to

make sure that they understood the content. For example, I asked a lot of questions like “When

looking at the two number sentences, what is the difference that you notice?” and “If I were to

use the turn-around strategy, what would be my new number sentence?” I did a lot of these

examples during the lesson and mostly stuck with the same handful of questions during each

practice problem. I think asking deeper, higher level thinking questions might push the students

to think more intensely about the math they are doing. Another thing that I would change would

be the way I introduced the content to the students. I think that the majority of the class took

away the main idea of the lesson, but I feel that introducing the content using the domino on the

smartboard was confusing at first for the students. They didn’t quite understand how I was

flipping the numbers at first or why the two sets of numbers correlated. Instead, I might try using

an anchor chart or maybe a video to introduce the theory to the kids so that it might be clearer for

the beginning, content wise.

 I think that a teacher could implement my plan strictly using my planning narrative. I feel

this way because I tried my best to lay out in detail each step I was going to take in teaching the

lesson. For example, the ways I would choose numbers to write with the students, the activity,

the order or activities, etc. I also mentioned all of the different ways I would assess the students,

the technology I would use, and different levels of thinking in the pre-planning section that

would allow another teacher to better understand the classroom they were entering to teach in.

As far as teaching this lesson, I really think that this lesson was a major improvement for

me. I felt the most comfortable in front of the class than I ever have; I felt confident in both

teaching the content to the students and being in a position to monitor classroom behavior. Based

on the classes taken this far in my program, I know that classroom management is a major aspect

of maintaining a successful classroom. I redirected student attention, reminded them of

procedures, etc. all so well compared to before. I also was able to use the things I have learned in

all my classes when it comes to how to introduce content to the students. Specifically, I followed

the “I do, We do, You do” structure during this lesson as well as providing meaningful examples

and using technology to involve the students. I demonstrated the strategy for the students, and we

did some practice together, then the students were expected to do some on their own.