Reflections for Doubles Lesson

Behavior: What were your concerns; what worked; what did not; challenges?

During the doubles lesson, I decided it was a good idea to incorporate movement after

seeing such good results with movement during previous lessons. So, I planned an activity where

students came up with moves for a dance that repeated the answers to doubles addition

sentences. The students did fairly well with this, but overall, I could have broken it down a little

more and given them a better visual cue on which dance move to make and when to make it so

students weren’t so confused. I was later concerned during the doubles lesson with both the fast

finishing students and slow finishing students. This lesson requires a lot of writing and drawing,

and I worried that those students who struggled with their handwriting would also struggle with

completing the written work. My student who has an IEP requires some written language

modifications, so I needed to make sure he understood where to write on the paper. Some of the

students finished with the lesson early and drifted off task at first so having them move on fluidly

to the next item was critical. I also had to keep in mind that these students are young and have a

hard time staying on task in one place for longer than about 12 minutes. With this in mind, and in

order to prevent off task behavior, I planned on students frequently transitioning from desk to

carpet and back to desk to help keep them engaged. However, since this had the unintended

consequence of preventing the slower finishers from completing the work I believe that breaking

this up with more activities would have been a better idea. I also think the next time I do this

lesson I will involve more manipulative and visual aspects to help students fully engage in the

content and spend less of their time writing.

Take one lesson guide and discuss what would be the next steps for students who did not

meet your objectives.

On the doubles lesson a lot of students didn’t meet my instructional objectives because

they seemed to struggle with the correct sums. As most double facts require memorization of the

sum, many students couldn’t find the answer for more difficult addends such as 7 plus 7, 8 plus

8, or 9 plus 9. I could tell which students had studied their doubles and which students had not

yet. With this in mind I think the way I conducted the lesson was more like a review lesson after

students have some familiarity with their doubles facts. With those students who did not meet the

objectives and struggled to find the sums of some doubles, I think further association with real

life concepts may help. As a visual learner myself, I can picture 6 eggs plus 6 eggs to make a

dozen or 12 eggs, or 8 marbles and 8 marbles adds up to 16 marbles. Students might understand

more with physical objects or visual pairs of actual objects. Furthermore, an extended lesson

could involve flashcards displaying the sum of doubles facts to assist the students in committing

their doubles math facts to long term memory.

Reflections for Number Line Lesson

How did you conduct formative assessment and make changes as you taught your lesson?

As I taught my third lesson on number lines, I observed informally how the students were

absorbing the information. I scaffolded depending on how well the students were understanding

the information. For instance, when I began the lesson students experienced using their bodies to

hop on a number line and physically add on numbers to the first number. Later on they needed to

use a smaller number line at their desks or on their paper and needed to use their finger to hop. I
could tell some students really struggled with this, so I had to help them start at the first bigger

number and then hop up to the correct addend amount. I observed students counting out loud and

I could see who understood and who struggled. I decided during my lesson to allow students to

come over to me at a different table if they felt they did not understand some of the problems.

Then I individually encouraged and helped students hop with their pencil from one addend to the

sum. The students seemed to really benefit from this change in the lesson and by the end I saw

very positive results on their worksheets.

How would you describe student learning during the unit, based on pre- and post

assessment data?

As I set up my pre and post- assessments, I first identified how each of the different areas

of knowledge needed to be included in the set of questions. I formatted it so that questions 1-3

directly connected to lesson 1, questions 4-7 connected to lesson 2, 8-10 connected to lesson 3,

and 11-13 connected to lesson 4. That way I would be able to look within the assessment and see

who struggled with each concept and how. I could also look at the assessment overall and see

who understood the whole unit. During my lessons I saw considerable student progress. For

example, within my number line lesson I could see students really did not know how to use a

number line since not one student was able to use a number line correctly on the number line

pretest questions. But as they learned how to jump on the number line on the carpet they began

to show improvement. By the end of the lesson most students were able to complete more

complicated number line addition sentences. Overall on the post-test students showed a lot more
improvement and I could see who showed improvement on which sections of the unit, and who

needed more instruction and practice.

What effective teaching strategies and technology did you use?

I brought academic concepts to life with visual and practical learning experiences by

having students use their own bodies to hop on a number line on the floor. Technology was

incorporated using the smart board as I wrote numbers and had students put them in order.

During the lesson I helped them fully visualize the concept by giving each of them number lines

on their desks to use as manipulatives. The students really enjoyed this lesson and by using

several different teaching strategies I believe this captured their attention fully. The students also

enjoyed playing a game with manipulatives and their number line. They worked cooperatively as

well which helped students teach their peers once they fully understood the concept on an

abstract level. In my commutative lesson I incorporated more technology by using an interactive

video of an individual other than myself teaching the content.

Reflections for Doubles Plus One Lesson

What will you do the same and/or differently in the future in terms of assessing student

learning and using assessments to design curriculum?

I think I would structure the pre/post assessments differently. Combining so much

information in one test can create a lot of confusion for some students. I could have broken down

the pre and post assessments into short questions after each lesson. Furthermore, it was hard for

me to actually see student learning on this specific unit since ‘strategies of addition’ is a method
of learning and it is often hard for students to show how they solved a particular problem. In the

last lesson on doubles plus one, the direct questions on the pre/post-assessment asked students to

complete an addition sentence using doubles plus one and it contained problems such as 7+8= ?,

6+7=?, 5+6=?. It was difficult to observe how the student solved the problem in their head and

whether they understood how to add the number as a double fact and then add one more. I need

to develop an alternate way to assess their learning and one possibility would be to have the

students talk with each other and myself in small groups about their understanding and

problem-solving steps.

How and why did you use the research in context data you collected as you designed your

unit?

Since this was a mathematics lesson it was a little bit difficult to involve more contextual

components, however I can talk about what I had in mind while teaching this unit. After

researching the community and learning more about each student’s fund of knowledge I knew

which students had more or less support at home, which students had two homes with separated

parents or different circumstances that could possibly have an impact on their learning. In this

way for my doubles plus one lesson I could really see which students had been studying their

doubles facts at home. Though we have been doing our doubles rap frequently, I did encourage

students to thoroughly study their doubles facts at home, especially the numbers 6 through 9. For

those students that I thought may have less support at home in learning doubles facts, I

recommended a website where they could play a game either at home or on their Chromebook

during Chromebook time that involved answering doubles facts quickly. These students did seem
to enjoy doing that exercise and I saw a beneficial effect from the supplemental help in our

doubles plus one lesson.