Teaching this unit on decimals, ratios, proportions, and percents was very challenging for me as a teacher.  It definitely stretched my typical teaching styles and really helped me to improve my teaching overall.  Particularly, evaluating and analyzing the data from the pre- and post- tests was very informative and helped me to reflect on my teaching and pinpoint where I was the most successful and where I was the least successful.

The Learning Goal where my students achieved the highest success rate by far was Learning Goal #3.  Learning Goal #3 states that the students will simplify expressions and solve equations which involve decimal numbers.  I believe that there are several reasons for this success.  First, the subject matter for this learning goal was very similar to subject matter that we had covered earlier in the semester.  Performing operations and solving equations on whole numbers was something that the students had already been exposed to, so adding decimals to the mix was not too big of a stretch for them.  This reason really has nothing to do with my teaching, but just the reality of the subject matter. 

Second, I think that the instructional activities that I had planned for this particular Learning Goal really helped the students to understand the real-world applications better than they had before and motivated them to increase their understanding of the subject matter while having fun at the same time.  Some of our activities included ordering from restaurant menus, calculating tax and splitting the bill.  Another activity involved choosing items from a catalog to order as gifts for someone else, adding prices and subtracting coupon amounts.  During these activities, the students were genuinely engaged in the learning and grasped the concepts very well.

Third, the assessments that covered the material for this learning goal were very thorough.  The homework covered each operation using decimals in detail as well as solving equations using decimals.  The midpoint quiz was also very helpful in determining where students seemed to lack focus or understanding so that we could concentrate our attentions exactly where needed when studying and reviewing for the post-assessment.

The Learning Goal where my students achieved the least success was Learning Goal #5.  While the same number of students achieved the desired accuracy level in this Learning Goal as in Learning Goal #4, the average rate of accuracy was lower for Learning Goal #5.  Learning Goal #5 states that the students will use percentages appropriately to solve application and conversion problems.   The application problems seemed to be the area where the students had the most difficulty.  I believe that the lack of student success was the result of two main reasons.  First, the instructional design for this lesson was probably not the most effective way to teach these concepts.  While it thoroughly covered the material, there was not as much student involvement as some of the other lessons and could have led to a lack of interest in the material.

Second, this particular Learning Goal involved a significant amount of subject matter.  The instructional design for this class was fairly intense and forced the students to learn quite a bit of material in one class sitting.

In the future, I would hope to teach this Learning Goal and subject matter in a way that my students will experience more success and achieve a higher success rate.  In future lesson, I believe that I will make the following two changes.  First, I would involve activities that force student participation or at least encouraged more interaction from the students.  This could involve taking students to a computer lab and having them explore the applications that were used in this lesson on their own or in groups instead of as a class.  This could allow them to learn and discover more at their own pace and have a more “hands-on” experience, which would allow them to more fully understand the concepts.

Second, I would try to break this subject matter into more than one lesson plan or class period.  This was a lot of material covered and lessening the amount could have a dramatic impact on student understanding.  It would allow for more time for each individual concept and allow for me, the teacher, to assess more fully the level of understanding from the students in order to know where to focus our future reviews and studies.

Overall, I found this experience to be very insightful into my own teaching abilities and I believe that it will contribute greatly to my pedagogical skills.