Shannon Young

TLS 316

Erin Turner

7 December 2018

Equity Analysis

When I first started planning this lesson for my classroom I was very nervous because of

how difficult of a class it is. We have a ton of kids with behavioral issues and it usually comes

out in whatever lesson my teacher is teaching so from the very beginning I was extremely

nervous. For my class we had just started addition and learning about equations so I decided to

do a lesson plan based off of that. For my lesson I wanted to use ten frames because they have

worked with them before and i wanted them to have them use to create a visual for them to write

their equation. What I've learned most from this math class is that kids love using manipulative

and when I was doing this lesson that showed a lot. I noticed that it made it so much easier for

them to see the equation and to be able to get the correct answer.

Overall I am very happy with how my lesson came out and how the entire class behaved

during it. On this day we had six students missing and I think that helped me a lot because some

of the kids who usually cause distractions weren’t there and I was able to grab the students

attention and keep it for mainly the whole time. I created my own power point because the

manipulatives we were using were red and white and my teacher gave me a pre-made

powerpoint from our schools curriculum and after looking at it I realized that it was possible it

could confuse the kids. I decided to make the powerpoint and only use the colors red and white

so it corresponded with what they were using and I think that helped me out so much in getting

my lesson connected to them. For the most part every student was able to write their equations
and get their answer correct. Once the powerpoint was over I had two students come and make

up their own stories and I used that to be able to have the kids pay attention and participate

because I picked the two student who I thought worked really hard during the lesson.

When first thinking about my students learning I pulled up the part in my video where I

asked the students to tell me what an equation is. I wanted to know what an equation needs to

make it correct. One of our smartest students raised his hands and gave me a very great answer,

he told me that an equation was kind of like a sentence in a book which I thought was a great

way of looking at math. He said that you needed two numbers and a sign in the middle like a

plus or minus and that after the second number you needed an equal sign and then the answer. I

am very glad that I called on him at this part because he gave all of the other students a very

visual answer and helped them understand what I was trying to get them to do. He also gave

them an example by saying its like having 5+5=10 which I thought was great and helped the

other students to write their own equations.

I then went into the first slide which was flowers, I asked the students what two colors the

flowers were and they told me white and red. I then asked them to tell me what color their

manipulatives were and they all told me white and red. The first question was five white flowers

and two red flowers. I wanted to see how the students understood the task so I walked around as

they were doing it. As I was walking around I could see that some students were struggling to

understand what to do with the ten frame. I told them that they had five white flowers and asked

how many white dots should they put on their board. They told me five, I then asked if there are

two red flowers how many dots should they have on their ten frame and they told me two red

dots. From there I looked around and could tell understood so I then asked them how many

flowers do they have all together. I called on a student and he told me that they have seven
flowers all together. I could tell that when I made the connection with them about he colors they

could see the dots in their head as flowers and they were able to get their answer correctly.

When it came to writing the equation some of them didn’t understand where the plus sign

and equal sign went. The way that I wanted to help the other kids was to use a student who did

understand it to show the class a visual. I had a student come up and write their equation and talk

through it with the class on where both of the signs go. I wanted to use a student to help teach

because I found that peers helping peers not only helps the other students but gives that student a

ton of confidence which is extremely important to me. He wrote his answer on the board

explaining that the plus sign goes in the middle of the two numbers and the equal sign goes after

the last number and then you put your answer and after that almost every kid did their equations

right so I'm glad I could use his thinking to help the other kids with their thinking.

The lens that I chose was the teaching lens because as I was watching my video I

couldn’t help but critique myself and judge everything I was doing. I noticed that I was very

repetitive and everything that I was saying for each question was basically the same so that made

me upset to watch and I know that if I made the lesson longer the kids would have gotten bored

of it. I do think I did a good job of letting the kids talk and have their own voice in the lesson.

Once I did the first two questions I had kids come up and read each question to the class so they

were also practicing their reading and public speaking. I also had two children come up with

their own questions and I think this was one of the best parts of my lesson because it gave the

students an opportunity to create their own work and have the entire class do it with them. I also

made sure to always have the students raise their hands and give their answers and then share

with their table groups when they got their answer incase anyone needed help and this I feel is so
important for students self confidence because it gives them the opportunity to be the teacher

figure in the classroom.

While I was teaching I realized that I was thinking about so many things at once and

couldn’t stop making sure that everything was going perfect. I wanted to be able to help every

student but it wasn’t possible because I also had to teach the lesson. I am grateful that I picked

the lesson that I did because I was able to walk around a lot while the kids were working on their

ten frames to be able to see who was doing good and who was struggling. When it got down to

the last couple of questions I walked to the back of the room and noticed that one of the students

hadn’t written anything down. Instead of getting mad or upset at him I made sure that he knew

that I would come help him after and do the problems with him to make sure that he understood

what was happening. I also had the girl that was sitting next to him help him out with his ten

frame board because I noticed she was understanding the work.

When asking questions I think this was one of my struggles because I wanted to ask open

ended questions to hear their thinking and responses but I felt like they were all very closed

questions and didn’t leave much room for them to talk instead of just giving me the answer.

When watching myself speak one on one with kids I noticed that I always asked open ended

questions like asking one of the little girls how she figured out her answer and she told me

because she had 5 red houses and 3 white houses she counted all of them up on her ten frame and

came up with 8 houses all together. While I was talking whole group I noticed that I didn’t ask as

many open ended questions which is something that I want to change for next time.

I think that having the kids make up their own questions using things from their lives was

a great part of the lesson. A lot of kids used toys that they have at their house to write their

equations and it just made the lesson way more fun for them. One of the most rewarding parts of
the lesson was when I finished and one of my students yelled out that he didn’t know math could

be so fun and it made me so happy to know that they loved what they were doing. The reason

that I think that it was so fun for them was because they had something to use in their hands to

move around instead of just a pencil and the fact that they got to bring in their own lives to create

their own problems and have an answer to figure out and see the outcome.

Overall I think that the lesson went very well and the kids enjoyed it a lot. Something that

I want to change about the lesson is making it more diverse. After the sixth slide of the same

thing with putting the dots on the ten frame and having them count it out I could tell it was

making the kids bored. Next time I want to maybe give them an equation and have them put the

dots on the ten frame to see if they understand the concept of of addition fully. I think that it

would be more difficult for them but as I was watching I could see most of them working on it

and doing well I think the lesson was too simple and needed to be more challenging. Something

that I want to strengthen for next time is my questions and how I ask the kids about their work.

Like I said a lot of my questions were very close ended and didn’t give the kids much room to do

explaining. In the end I think that the lesson worked out very well and me, my mentor teacher

and my kids all enjoyed it a lot.