Reflections
The learning goal my students were most successful with was learning goal 1, which was for students to compare and order whole numbers. One reason for growth with this learning goal was because of the spiraling of my instruction. I built layer upon layer, starting from the foundation my host teacher had laid over the first couple of weeks. As I covered each portion of learning goal 1 bit by bit, students were given ample opportunity to practice skills under my guidance and through independent practice. I also included as many interactive activities as possible and used whole brain teaching methods to create interactive lessons.
A second reason I believe students were so successful with learning goal 1 is because I used technology quite a bit throughout instructional and practice time. I used the Smart board to have students work with digital manipulatives (e.g. place value blocks) for comparing numbers. When we started working with ordering numbers, I used an interactive place value chart on the Smart board to model how to compare numbers using place value to then order them from least to greatest or greatest to least. The students then applied this knowledge through a second round of guided practice by creating a foldable in their math notebooks. They created a place value chart then filled it in with several numbers and ordered the numbers from least to greatest. For independent practice, students received a strip of numbers that they cut apart and ordered from greatest to least. They then drew a number line in their notebook and glued the numbers in order from greatest to least on the number line. All phases of instruction, assessments, and activities were created with differentiation in mind.
Learning goal 2 appeared to be the least successful for my students. Many students seemed to continue to be confused by rounding “down” and this was evident on assessments throughout the unit of instruction. Although I used spiraling to remind students of the importance of using prior knowledge of place value, quite a few students still could not seem to make that connection. Although they rounded quite well, many of them often rounded to whichever place value they were most familiar with.
Also, I did conduct many informal observations throughout instructional time for learning goal 2, and was aware of students’ confusion. I also worked one-on-one with several students in an attempt to help clear up their confusion, but very little showed improvement. It was noted that students were confused by the rounding rule that if the number is four or less, round “down.” They wanted to subtract from the place they were rounding to round “down.” Although we did hands-on guided and independent practice as well as cooperative learning groups for extra practice and more practice in computer lab, students struggling to grasp this skill overall did not meet expectations.
To improve or enhance student performance in the future with this learning goal, I would not teach students the rounding “down” rule. Instead, I would use an alternate method of teaching rounding to the nearest ten or hundred by using a rounding rule song to teach students to find the place value they are rounding, look at the number next door (to the right); if that number is five or bigger, add one more. Then all the numbers to the left stay the same and the numbers to the right turn to zeros. I would totally leave out the “round up, or round down” out of my instruction.
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