Julianna Ruffino

Formal Observation

Mrs. Pierce’s lesson for the formal observation was in math class. First, she took all of

the students on the carpet to introduce the lesson to the students. The lesson was on longs and

cubes and how they represent a number. The objective of the lesson was to introduce longs and

cubes, to represent numbers with longs and cubes, and to explain addition and subtraction with

iPads. To help the students understand, she drew 2 longs and 5 cubes on the board. She then

asked the students to say what number the longs and cubes represented. All of the students raised

their hand and when she called on a student, he got the answer correct. She then did another

example of the board. Mrs. Pierce drew 4 longs and 9 cubes on the board and asked the students

how many were there. The students raised their hands, but said “48”, which is incorrect. She told

that student to recount the cubes, and when she did, she said “49” and got the answer correct.

Mrs. Pierce then explained that when there are longs, it represents 10 cubes. Each cube

represents the number 1. When you add the longs and cubes together, each long is 10 and each

cube is 1. After she explained this, she told the students to get into their assigned groups of about

5 students each and she started the group work.

After each student was in their group, there were three stations: the iPads, the reading

table where Mrs. Pierce would lecture, and the worksheet table. At the iPads group, the students

were to log onto their math website and complete the online videos and games that were

mandatory for the class. On those games, there were addition and subtraction questions for the

students to complete. There were no problems for the students, and they understood everything

they had to do in that station. The next station was at the worksheet table. Each student was to go

into their “On Your Own” packet and complete the place value page. This page has six boxes
with tens and cubes inside each one. The directions stated, “In each of the boxes below, write the

number that the base ten blocks represent”. The students were to write the number that the long

cubes represented in the box. The students needed directing on this worksheet, so one of the

assisting teachers helped. The students were confused about the directions and said it was “too

hard”. After the teacher described the directions, the students then understood and were able to

successfully complete the paper. The last station was at the reading table with Mrs. Pierce. At

that station, there were longs and cubes set up, along with white boards, markers, and erasers.

Mrs. Pierce went into detail with the longs and cubes and how they worked. She would put

different examples for the students to answer on their white board. After everyone answered she

would check their work. Some students got it right and some didn’t so what she did was explain

the longs and cubes concept again in hopes on them understanding. After she did another

example, the students got it right and she was able to move on. After that, she wrote a number on

her board and the students were to draw that number with longs and cubes on their board. It took

a few tries, but soon every student understood how to represent different numbers with longs and

cubes. After about 6 minutes, Mrs. Pierce would rotate the stations around until the time was up.

From this formal observation, I learned that sometimes, you have to repeat yourself for

others to understand. There were a few times where the teachers had to say the questions again,

so the students were able to complete the work. I think the lesson was executed very nicely and

the teachers were able to get the students to understand the lesson. Pretty much every day was

like this in math class, which is why Mrs. Pierce’s classes were so successful.