Assignment 1: Tiered Lesson

Curriculum (Learning) Area of Lesson: Mathematics

Specific Topic of Lesson: Money and financial mathematics

Year Level/s: 4

Lesson Context (1 paragraph)

This lesson is designed for a year 4 class of 28 students completing a unit on money and financial
mathematics. The unit will be aimed at the Australia Curriculum content descriptor (2021) ‘Students solve
simple purchasing problems’. This lesson will be an introduction into money and financial mathematics. I
will need to do a quick pre-assessment to see what their prior knowledge is around money. This will be a
simple pre-assessment to gauge knowledge and understanding of the topic without overwhelming
students This will enable me to see their readiness levels and support in differentiating my lesson to cater
for all learning needs. Students will be given further opportunities to achieve a deeper understanding of
financial mathematics. Students will also have a multimodal approach with the chance for a hands-on
learning and guided work as a group to increase their understanding.

School:
Class Size: 28
Student diversity: One funded student with trauma background, identified student who is low level
academic learning at reception level, 4 students who are high achievers and will need extension, low-
socioeconomic area.
Overall classroom learning goal: Growth mindset, focusing on resilience and not giving up

Learning Objectives

Understand: As a result of engaging with the lesson, students will understand that an amount of money
can be represented in different ways as well as understanding dollars and cents. (Adapted from ACARA,
2021).

know (e.g. facts, vocabulary, dates, be able to (do)

information)
As a result of involving in this lesson students will be
Students will know the vocabulary around able to represent money values in multiple ways and
money ie value, cents and dollars. add money together to calculate the total value.
(ACMNA059) (Adapted from ACARA, 2021).
Also knowing cents are a part of a dollar.
Essential Questions
What do we know about the difference between cents and dollars?
What form does money come in? (What does money look like?)
If something cost $10 what are the different ways we could represent this amount of money?

Preassessment of Individual Student Readiness

See appendix 1 for the pre-assessment
Pre-assessment will be administered at some point in the previous week to ensure students are not
overwhelmed by doing the pre-assessment and starting a new topic. The preassessment will enable me
to reflect on student answers and adjust my teaching strategies according to their readiness level. I
know of one student within my placement class who will struggle and give up on this, I will sit with him
and work with him on the floor with money manipulatives to support his understanding with visual and
physical aids.
 Lesson Plan
Lesson Sequence
Introduction:
As a class we will discuss the benefit of
having a growth mindset throughout
challenging tasks. Which will place an
importance of resilience and having a go
throughout their learning.
Students sit on the floor for whole class
introduction. Link this lesson back to the pre-
assessment and brainstorm on the board what
they know about money.
Students are given a question and asked to
solve the problem. Starting as a group
discussion I would ask what are the different
ways you can make a dollar? Highlighting that
50c is half of a dollar. Once students have
shown their readiness levels, I will be able to
differentiate the level of questioning.
Class questioning- some students will visually
show their representation with coins/ others
will be able to answer the question mentally,
others by writing all the possible ideas on
paper.
Question
‘Hannah had $28 in her wallet, what did the
money in her wallet look like’? What are the
different ways this can be represented?
Tiered Task
All students will complete the match up the
money game where they will have to match
the written amount of money to the picture
value of money.
Group A- this group will work with me on the
floor. There will be hands-on money
manipulatives. Students will be able to
physically make the amount of money and
break it down to count the amount needed.
Group B- this group have shown their
readiness for money with understanding the
concept. They will be set off to explore the
task independently. See appendix 4 for task.
Group C- this group have displayed that they
grasp the concept of money and will need an
extension to challenge and broaden their
learning. See appendix 5 for extension
activity.
Lesson Closure/ Check for Understanding
Explanatory notes
Introduction: Sitting on the floor will work with my
class as the students get easily distracted and off task
when at their desks, working on the floor allows class
discussion and every student has the chance to be
heard and held accountable to their learning. This
class discussion will allow students to share what they
know and encourages peer comparisons.
The problem will be either written on the whiteboard
on visually displayed on the tv.
See appendix 2 for questions and appendix 3 for
answers. Model that an amount of money can be
represented in different ways ie, $10 note, 2x $5, $8 +
$1 + $1 etc
Resources:
Whiteboard
Whiteboard marker
Magnet money – money manipulatives
Tiered Task
I have designed the task so that all students are able
to work on the money match game at their level of
readiness. This task offers students the opportunity to
represent money values in multiple ways (physical
money and dollar representation) The tiered aspect of
this lesson is the way students are able to approach
the learning at their level of readiness. Group A, works
on the task by having a hands-on approach with
manipulatives to support visual representation. Group
B working independently on the task and group C
students working on the task with an extension
opportunity if they finish quickly and require a
challenge. This task allows students to all achieve the
same outcome of understanding the task
(representing money in different ways) with their level
of readiness taken into consideration and supported.
 Students will return to the floor as a group where they will be asked to clarify the value of money I have.
How do they know they are correct? Can the value be represented with different coins? This will enable
me to assess if students have grasped the concept of the initial lesson within this unit. I will be able to
see if they need further time spend on understanding money representations or if we need to spend
more time unpacking the concept around money.

I will aim to give the students 5 minutes at the end to complete appendix 6 to support student
understanding and what they actually learnt and areas I can spend more time on.

Explanation

Readiness levels of students are underpinned by their previous knowledge and understanding of concepts
(Jarvis, 2018). The big idea behind this lesson is money and financial mathematics, this particular lesson
was designed to cater for all students within my placement class. The money manipulatives will enable
group A to visually understand the value of money and the different ways this is represented ((McGrath &
Noble, 1993). While group C will have the opportunity to extend their understanding using written simple
purchasing problems. Extending students within this task will allow them to still complete the same task as
all students while extending their understanding worded problems and having ago at understanding the
concept of simple purchasing problems (Charles & Carmel, 2005). Group A will support my student with a
lower readiness level, this student struggles with writing and reading and basic understanding of concepts.
Throughout group A I will support this student to understand the concept of money with 1:1 time. This will
enable him to question and get a deeper understanding of money and different manipulatives, with the
help of physical money to represent the value.

Within this lesson there will be constant and on-going formative assessment to enable students to move
within groups based on their conceptual understanding. This will support students to access content at an
appropriate level of readiness and enable the opportunity for an open task without limitations.

The idea of the lesson plan allows students to be appropriately challenged so that they can individually
succeed while academic growth is still the end goal (Turville, Allen, & Nickelsen, 2010). Offering a tiered
lesson plan is a way to differentiate the instructions and task to optimise results and student
understanding. Having a lesson that caters for student readiness levels supports student engagement,
therefore, enhancing their understanding of the concept. Knowing your students and how they learn
underpins differentiation. It is difficult to make content relevant for students without understanding them,
academic failure often comes from lack of student teacher connection therefore it is imperative teachers
know their students to enhance their understanding of concepts (Tomlinson, 2008).

Being an effective teacher involves breaking down those barriers of student assumption and looking at
what students actually know rather than what their age group says they should know, this will create
opportunities for students to achieve progress (Jarvis, 2013). The way I have grouped students based on
readiness supports the idea of grouping being flexible so students are not in the same group for every
task, they are grouped in their ability/ readiness level for that task. This way of grouping ensures that
students have the opportunity to work with different peers exposing them to different ways of working.

Differentiation is a methodical approach to supporting students in gaining the knowledge to make progress
within their learning of a quality curriculum (Jarvis, 2013).

References
Use APA style

Charles, R. I., & Carmel, C. A. (2005). Big ideas and understandings as the foundation for elementary and
middle school mathematics. Journal of Mathematics Education
Jarvis, J. M. (2013). Differentiating learning experiences for diverse students. In P. Hudson (Ed.),
Learning to teach in the primary school (pp. 52-70). Port Melbourne, Victoria: Cambridge University Press.
Leadership, 7(3), 9-24.
McGrath, H., & Noble, T. (1993). Different kids same classroom. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.

Tomlinson, C. A. (2008). The goals of differentiation. Educational Leadership, 66(3).

Turville, J., Allen, Linda, & Nickelsen, LeAnn. (2010). Differentiating by readiness : Strategies and lesson
plans for tiered instruction grades K-8.

Checklist of assignment components:

 Completed lesson context explanation
 Completed clear learning objectives and essential questions for the lesson
 Complete, step-by-step lesson description, with brief notes explaining how the lesson represents
an example of a tiered lesson to address readiness
 Explanatory 2-3 paragraphs clearly linking your lesson planning decisions to the topic content (and
citing sources as appropriate)
 Supplementary materials (e.g., copies of directions, handouts, etc. provided to students)
 Copy and/or description of preassessment task used to assign individual students to appropriate
“tiers”
 Evaluation/ assessment criteria (e.g., rubric or checklist used to guide your evaluation of student
work against the learning objectives for your lesson)
EDUC4720/4721/9406. Tiering format adapted from Tomlinson.

- Money manipulatives students will use to support with conceptual understanding

Appendix 1

The pre assessment will be conducted as more of a class discussion about what they know
about money. I have a $10 note and see their understanding of representing the value, how
many $1 make $10 and if they know how to write and represent dollars and cents. I think this
type of pre assessment would be best for my class. Below I have a worksheet for students who
feel and have shown they are confident in understanding the concepts behind money.

Appendix 3

Appendix 2- explicit teaching

Appendix 4 – main activity

Appendix 5 – higher readiness level

Appendix 6 – Student feedback, formative assessment