Lesson Goal:

Shooting for Gold with Decimals

By Brittney Ermatinger, Lauren Martinelli, Lauren Taube, and Valerie Weage
Students still struggled with understanding where to position decimal values on the number line. The score for the gymnast for this problem was 16.25. Therefore, the decimal should have been placed right in the middle between 16.2 and 16.3. Students also struggled with ordering decimals relating to the number of place values. For example, in one problem the students had to place 14.79, 14.8, and 14.666. Instead of students ordering the numbers in the correct order of 14.666, 14.79, and 14.8, some students order of the numbers would be 14.8, 14.79, and 14.666. Students had the misconception of a number having more decimal places means the number is larger.

Lessons Learned:
Providing relatable real-world contexts in tasks provides the teacher with the opportunity to use language and common knowledge to hit mathematical goals. Technology is interesting and relevant to students and their lives and leaves opportunity for the teacher to foster discussion of big picture concepts. Sometimes, student misconceptions are best answered by other students who have recently overcome the same mathematical obstacle. Working in a professional group to collaborate with lesson planning allows for a variety of strategies and opinions to be discussed which creates greater diversity of organizational practices and student questioning during the lesson. As a teacher, being comfortable and able to let students struggle on a problem is difficult by nature but also necessary for the pupils growth.

The real-world context of the problem helped students achieve the goal. The students were able to use prior knowledge they knew about gymnastics scoring and the events. The activity also sparked the interest of many students and kept them engaged throughout the lesson. Students were saying phrases such as, This is so cool! and Today was so much fun! Students were also engaged with the use of technology in the lesson. The students watched a YouTube video on the Fab Five Gymnasts and the students loved it. There were comments such as, YouTube is the bomb! Were watching a YouTube video? Yes! I love the Fab Five!

I think that we met the goal because the situation changed by adding in Kyla and we used what we know about decimals. student

This picture shows some struggles that some students had relating to our goal. One struggle is positioning the numbers on the number line. Some students were still struggling with place values and here you can see that this student believed that if a number had more place values than a different number, it was bigger, which is not always the case. However, they were able to say who should win gold, silver, and bronze, but these answers were not discovered from the way they set up their number line. Another struggle seen from the picture is the language some of the students were using. When the student explained which two gymnasts have the closest scores, they used the phrase like ten points instead of referring to the math vocabulary for decimal places tens, hundredths, thousandths, etc.

Learning

The students were able to have many discussions with each other regarding their positioning on the number line and the winners for each event. The discussion helped many students further understand the task and the goal they were working to achieve.

This student is also showing the language they have learned from the activity and they even calculated the difference in the two girls scores.

Over the 66 minutes that encompassed our lesson study, students analyzed the scores of different gymnasts in the 2012 summer Olympics and ordered their scores to determine a winner.

The lesson began with students watching a video that featured one of the athletes from the US team, Gabby Douglas. After the video, the teacher asked students to think about what they saw in the video that might be related to todays lesson and goal, as well as what sort of prior knowledge they have about the sport of gymnastics and its scoring.

After this introduction the teacher explained the directions, passed out the worksheet, and students were prompted to begin working individually. During this time, the teacher walked around the classroom to monitor and respond to questions. When complications arose, as frequently as possible, the teacher attempted to redirect students questions to focus on what prior knowledge they have about comparing decimals and the sport of gymnastics.

Once it appeared that most students had finished with the first part of the worksheet, the teacher began to distribute the second worksheet, which displayed the all around scores for each girl listed on the first worksheet. On this worksheet, students were asked to consider how each all around score was calculated. Students were allowed to work in pairs and many students used this opportunity to debate answers to both worksheets.

After most students had time to consider this question, the teacher pulled everyone back together for a whole class discussion. Together, with assistance from the teacher, the class wrote the order of the scores to determine which athletes placed gold, silver, and bronze. When one student expressed confusion about the standings for the floor exercise, the teacher asked another student to display their work on the document camera and the other student was encouraged to redirect their questions to the student presenting.

Revisions

Since students were told to position the gymnasts on the number line, it gave them a visual, which helped students understand the ordering of numbers and which gymnast won each event. After completing the first part of the task and completing the winners for each event, the students had to look at the 5th girls scores being added in to the events, Kyla Ross, and see how her score affects their number line and gold, silver, and bronze winners. This helped check the students understanding of the goal.

This picture displays how students learned how to analyze the all around score to discover how it is calculated in the Olympics. It also challenged them to look at all of their scores for the events and see how they all come together in the end. Based on how the gymnasts did in each event affected how they did overall.

The students learned how to answer questions using the language they have learned for decimals. This displays the understanding many students had from positioning different decimal values on the number line. The students also learned how to tell where numbers would lie between intervals. For example, one problem the students were looking at was to position 15.243 and 15.25 on the number line. They had to decide between the interval 15.2 and 15.3 where these numbers would lie. Many students learned that 15.25 would lie directly in the middle, while 15.243 would lie closer to 15.2

Launch: After the class has watched the first part of the video, the teacher started the discussion with the class. We initially had questions to probe the students knowledge of gymnastics and scoring. We added in questions that were asked in the first teaching of the lesson. These questions were more realistic and authentic in addition to the questions we had discussed prior to the lesson. At the end of the discussion, we asked, what event did we not see in the video? this helped students understand that the video was stopped early and gave the idea of a reward for the students, finishing the video, if they stayed on task. We discussed showing the picture of the five gymnasts that would be discussed during the lesson. Students would be able to associate the name with the face while they worked through the scores and the events on the worksheet. This helped students make connections to the work they were completing. Once the students were handed the first page of the worksheets, one student read the direction. They had a short discussion afterwards that helped the class talk through and interpret the directions to determine what would be required to complete the worksheet. Explore: In the first lesson, students were handed the All Around worksheet when they completed the four individual events. The teacher then had to explain the directions multiple times to students to help them get started. In the revised lesson, the teacher collected the attention of the class then proceeded to explain what an all around score was as well as read the question to the students. After this, students who had completed the first worksheet could begin the second sheet and students who were still were working on the first could return to their work and they would know what to do once they finished the worksheet. Discussion: Our main change in the lesson plan is the use of colored chalk. During the first discussion the teacher used white chalk to write the standings of the four gymnasts then added Kyla to the standings using arrows and small writing. The revised lesson has the teacher use a second color to draw attention to the changes Kylas score makes. This helps students follow along more easily, and helps visual learners see how adding in another score shifts the current standings. During the last few minutes of class, students were shown Gabby Douglas floor exercise routine as a reward for working hard and having free time at the end. This helped the class have a full circle feel. We watched the video and discussed the goal at the beginning of class and then once they completed their work, we discussed the completion of the goal as well as finishing the video.

As some students had already noticed from the picture, there are actually 5 gymnasts on the USA team. After the ranking and all around scores had been discussed, the teacher placed the score results for Kyla Ross, the fifth girl on the team, and asked students to re-assess their ranking given this new information. Again, students were encouraged to work in pairs to answer the teachers questions while monitoring and adjust their standings.

After about 5 minutes, the teacher called the whole class back together again to discuss. The teacher called on students to explain how the rankings changed for each event and recorded the changes on the chalkboard by adding in Kylas name where appropriate and crossing off gymnasts who were pushed down in the rankings.

At the end of the discussion, the teacher asked several questions about the assignment and gathered student responses. Then, the teacher asked one student to re-read the goal aloud to the class. After, the teacher asked the students whether or not they felt as though they achieved this goal and the consensus was that the goal had been accomplished.