Emily Carpino

Elementary Mathematics

November 8, 2017

Math Night Summary

Math night overall was a success. I think Math Night went so well for our group because

we could think on our feet and adjust when needed. My partner and I had equal responsibilities

throughout the process and communicated very well. Most of our

preconceptions/misconceptions we had before Math Night held true and we could address

them appropriately. Overall I feel like we had a successful math night with our Magical

Measurement project.

My partner, Sabrina Spilman, and I shared equal parts when it came to collaborating

ideas and making our project come to life. We started out the first day we could work in class

deciding what exactly we wanted to do. Separate ideas were put into consideration from the

both of us, but then we ended up agreeing on doing the magical measurement activity. After

that, we started creating our lesson plan. We decided, in class, who was going to do each

specific section and picked our specific font we were going to type in. We also added another

font color for what we had worked on in class together. We figured it out to where we had

almost an equally amount of the lesson plan to do each and both finished our portions before it

was due. We chose a Sunday afternoon to work on our board and get our supplies for the

project. We went to Walmart and The Dollar Tree together to find a combination of things and

collaborated ideas on how exactly we wanted to decorate our board. We split the price at both

stores and then went to the library to make our board together. We met another time after this
in the IRC to finish up putting it together and reviewing everything that we would be doing the

night of Math night. This would have been two nights before math night. I feel like Sabrina and I

both did a good job in sharing our equal part of the work for this project. We made an excellent

team for our Magical Measurement activity!

Since Lakeside has a high free/reduced lunch percentage we had the preconception that

most of the students that would be participating in the activity were from low-income families.

This is when we had to think about what we were asking. Initially, we were going to ask the

students if their mom’s use a measuring cup to cook at home. Then we realized that some

families may not have a measuring cup, and others may not have parents that even cook. We

decided to leave that question out of our lesson plan. Another preconception we had was more

towards the younger group of kids. We said that they would have the misconception that if the

container is taller, then it will hold more liquid than the shorter container. This misconception

did hold true for some students, and did not for others. Some students did pick out the tallest

container when us asking them which one was holding the most liquid. Others picked our

smallest cup we had. Their explanation was “this one looked the fullest, so I thought it had the

most.” They weren’t lying. It did look the fullest, but at the end when we measured all the

different amounts, they realized they all held the same amount of liquid. They had the

dissatisfaction when it came to the conceptual change at the end of the activity. Dissatisfaction

is when the student recognizes that there is some mismatch between what they know and

what they are now being presented with (Fincher, 2017).

One specific highlight I had from math night was how well we both worked on our feet.

No matter how prepared we were, there was bound to be the students who asked the
questions we did not anticipate. When they asked them, we could come up with a reasonable

enough answer! Another highlight would be how much fun the students had at our station. In

the video link, you posted on canvas from the news, I love how the little kid is just smiling from

ear to ear as I’m explaining the concept skills of our project. At the time, I did not notice him

smiling because I was so focused on trying to say everything I needed to. This video reassured

me that it was successful just by his smile. One thing I found worked for my partner and I was

making a shorter composed outline of what our lesson was and what we need to say. We

remembered it being hard flipping through papers trying to read the lesson at Science night last

semester so we came up with the idea to create a shorter outline with bullet points. We also

had clipboards that we stuck the outline to so that it looked more professional than just holding

our papers. I would change incorporated more bullets into the lesson plan to make it more

organized and easier to read.

Through the information on the bar graph provided below, we could tell the

differentiation of knowledge between the age ranges of students. The students who have

reached the stage 4 on the chart already knew what the result would be. These students have

most likely already learned about liquid volume and could tell that even though the three

glasses were different shapes and sizes, they all held the same amount of liquid. The students

who had reached the stage three somewhat understood what was going to happen throughout

the process of our exploration. The students who were two and below did not figure out that all

the containers held the same amount until the very end when we got down at eye level and

measured all of them. This was an interesting way to look at the data other than just going by
what we saw. There was a pattern between the students age and how they approached our

activity.

The qualitative data was also interesting to look at and reflect on after Math Night was

over. Sabrina and I took turns taking the anecdotal notes of our students so it was interesting

seeing the different things we found from our students. We had a student who was in the 3 rd

grade and he knew what volume was and could describe to us the definition. By the end of our

demonstration, he could solve the problem and figure out that each glass had the same

amount. This situation showed me that he had been exposed to some information on the

concept volume. Another student we wrote about was in the 5th grade. He walked up to our

table and stated that the same amount of water was in each one right off the bat and could

describe to us that we measure liquid volume through a liquid measuring cup. This showed that

he has had quite a bit of experience and learned a lot in school about volume. I believe this

student would be considered in the Formal Operations stage of Piaget’s theory. I think this

student used the clarification component of this stage when looking at our activity. The

clarification component requires students to identify and analyze elements of a problem,

allowing them to decipher the information needed in solving a problem (Ojose, 2008). A

Kindergartener we had visit us matched our misconceptions perfectly. He stated that the

container with the most liquid was the one that looked the fullest. He also described volume as

something being high or low. These critical thinking strategies could be from what he’s

experienced in his life.

Throughout the process of math night, I learned many things. One thing I learned is that

it is very important to always be prepared. This may have just been one night of preparation,
but this taught me that it will be so important to be prepared every day for lessons and

activities. In my future classroom, I will make sure I am prepared so that my students will be

able to get the most out of their learning experience! Another thing it taught me is that I

shouldn’t worry so much about reading straight off the lesson plan and instead focus on talking

to the students. If I know my information like I should, it should just flow into words and

become natural for me to discuss. Plus, the students will most likely be able to understand

better if you’re not looking straight off the lesson plan. Math night taught me many things but

the most important thing it taught me is that I am very ready to begin my career as a teacher.

Anecdotal Notes Data

Participant7

Participant6

Participant5

Participant4

Participant3

Participant2

Participant1

1 2 3 4

Explanation Strategies Understanding

Dr. Fincher (2017) Misconceptions pptx. Retrieved from canvas on November 8, 2017

Ojose, Bobby (2017) Applying Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development to Mathematics

Instruction. Retrieved on November 8, 2017