Michelle Christerson

TIE535 Instructional Design AUSL Fall 2012 TPA Task 2: Instruction Commentary 1. In the instruction seen in the clip(s), describe strategies you used to engage students in learning tasks to develop skills and strategies to comprehend or compose text. a. Cite examples of strategies aimed at engaging all your students and examples aimed at engaging specific individuals or subgroups. If you described any of these fully in the lesson plans or the planning commentary, just reference the relevant description. For my lesson, Counting Dominos, I used a couple strategies to engage the students to develop skills to understand the objective of the lesson- to count dots on dominos and match them to the corresponding numeral. In the beginning of my lesson, I asked the students to raise their hands if they ever saw a domino. I knew that the majority (if not all) my students have seen or played with dominos, so this was a lesson that was able to incorporate the old with the new (something my mentor is an advocate for). As a whole group, we counted jumbo size dominos, which allowed full class participation, and then matched them to the corresponding number on my anchor chart. I also cold called 5 students (something that I was not captured on video) to count small paper dominos, come up to the front, and tape them in the correct column on the anchor chart. Because I wanted every one to understand how to count dominos (not just the students I cold called), we counted small dominos as a class and I taped them in the correct column on the anchor chart (I did this part because I wanted to be explicit that the number of dots on the domino is not negotiable and that there is a correct spot for each domino). Because there is a wide range of student ability in my class, I decided to make the whole group instruction focus on numbers 1-10 (there are some students that cant count past ten, but also students who can count past 100) and I wanted to make sure the lower students understood the concept of matching numbers to the representation of the number, or the dots on the dominos. For the activity, I paired the students by ability (stated in my lesson plan) to play a domino game with a partner, which allowed me to differentiate and challenge each student individually.

Michelle Christerson

b. How did these strategies reflect students academic or language development, social/emotional development, or cultural and lived experiences? The students were able to participate during the majority of the lesson (they answered yes/no questions, helped me count dots on the domino, and then actually used the dominos as a matching game to further their understanding of counting and number representation. In the kindergarten class Im in, the students are less than thrilled to share, but I encouraged sharing and taking turns which will help them socially in the long run. 2. Cite examples of language supports seen in the clip(s) to help your students understand that content and/or participate in literacy discourse central to the lesson. 1. This is a domino. We are going to count these domino dots! Just because there is a line down the middle of the domino we still count all of the dots together. 2. Can this domino represent this number? Does this 3 look like this 3? Do they still represent the same number? Why or why not? a. How did these strategies reflect students varying language proficiencies and promote their language development? I made sure that the students understood that the dots on the dominos are all counted together because that is a crucial part in understanding what number the dots on the domino represent, and we did various examples to ensure they knew how to count them together. I also made sure to use the word represent over and over to really engrain that word in their brain. This let them know that there is a specific amount of dots on the domino, which equals an actual number. 3. Describe strategies for eliciting student thinking and how your ongoing responses further their learning. Cite examples from the clip(s). (Refer to time 1:48 on video) I asked the students if I could put a domino with 8 dots in the same column as a domino with 10 dots. I continued to ask the students why? to see if they really understood that the dots represented a specific number. Sariyah, a student in my class, responded to my question without really thinking about the question (saying that the big domino would touch the small dominos on the easel) but I really made her think of the why before I moved on. I then asked the students if I should make a new column for the number 8, which I think allows them to take ownership of their

Michelle Christerson

learning. If I just told them Im going to make a new column for the domino with 8 dots, then I wouldnt really get a good grasp of what they truly understand. 4. Reflection a. Reflect on students learning of concepts and academic language as featured in the video clip(s). Identify both successes and missed opportunities for monitoring all students learning and for building their own understanding of skills and strategies for comprehending and/or composing text. I was able to identify if the students understood the concept of counting dominos throughout the lesson; first, when I cold called students to come up and put the dominos under the correct column, second, when I directed the class as a whole and got a whole class response, and when I directly asked Sariyah where I should put a specific domino. I am glad that Sariyah responded that way; it allowed her (and Im sure other students as well) to understand WHY the eight couldnt be in the same column as the ten. Looking back, I could have called individual students to tell me where to put specific dominos and tell me WHY. I could have given them the prompt: This domino goes in the __ column because the dots represent that number. This would have allowed them to actually use the terms and make it unique to each of them. At the end of my lesson, I gave the students an exit ticket (this is not included in my clip) where they had to count and write the number of the dots on a domino. I made 3 different exit tickets to differentiate for each student: dots with numbers 1-9, dots with numbers 1-12, and dots with numbers 9-18. After analyzing the data, 13 students got 6/6 correct, 7 got 5/5 correct, and 4 students got 4 or less correct out of 6. The students who struggled on this exit ticket are students who received the 1-9 exit ticket. b. If you could do it over, what might you have done to take advantage of missed opportunities or to improve the learning of students with diverse learning needs and characteristics? If I could do this lesson over again, I would definitely call on students who are struggling already in math and have them count the dots with me to show them a more strategic way to count the dominos without forgetting which dots they already counted/didnt count. I also would have given each student a paper domino while we were on the carpet and called on every student to tell me how many dots were on his or her domino. This could have been a quick check for understanding so I would know whom to help when they were completing their exit ticket at their table.