Instructional Strategies

Field Report #2: Instructional Strategies

Berenisse Cruz

Tarrant County College

Instructional Strategies

The required field experience was conducted at Keller Independent School District. The

classroom observation was conducted in Mrs. Self 4th grade math and science at Caprock

Elementary School. Mrs. Self teaches with one other colleague, and they rotate classes mid-day.

Physical Space

Mrs. Self’s, classroom was located on the second floor of the building, room 233. Her

classroom had two pink walls as well as two blue walls, she had dangling star lights hanging

across the celling. When they start with the individual work, she has the room dark, with some

light brought by the dangling lights, when it’s time to learn the lights are turned on. The

classroom is arranged in groups of four with 6 seats. By the door there are cubes where they have

their supplies (books, notebooks, etc.) And their backpack’s along with their belongings were

hanging underneath. On top of the cubes, she has past class pictures. The students share desk

with the rotating class, they have their iPad, headphones and any close supplies they share. Mrs.

Self has a designated spot where she displays her students work. As well as posters of what’s

expected in the classroom. There is a teacher’s desk, and a group table, which next to it there is a

shelf with math modules. There is a projector that is controlled with the teachers iPad and a

smart board. By the teacher’s desk there is a sign that says Learners, with the picture of each

student.

Lesson

For Mrs. Self, math lesson they were going over how to solve multi-step problems. At the

front of the classroom on the whiteboard under the Math: “I can represent multi-step addition

and subtraction problems using strip diagrams and equations with a letter representing an

unknown quantity.” Mrs. Self gathered them in a circle in the middle of the classroom, she gave

them a problem for them to solve and asked them how they solved 172+23. Together they
Instructional Strategies

worked the problem out in different ways. Some people rounded down the 170 and then added

25 to find the total. Others did the old fashion way were the lined up the number and add. This

gave them an overview of what the upcoming lesson will be.

Individual Needs

She told them to take out their math journal and created a chart with total, part, part. As a

group they had to create a word problem using 182 kids as a total, 100 kids as a part and k as an

unknow part. One of the problems that a student created was “182 students went out Trick or

Treating, 100 of the kids had costumes, how many didn’t have costumes?” Mrs. Self, explained

to her how the problem was a good example. One of the students created a problem “100

students went fishing, 182 went to the park, how many students are there?” She explained that

182 was the total and 100 was a part, therefore we needed to find the missing part, instead of

adding the two numbers together. She told him to give it another try, and fixed the problem to

“There are 182 students, 100 went fishing, how many went to the park?” She walked around the

classroom to check on each group work problem, to make sure they understood the concept.

Grouping Strategies

After they were done, they were told to gather in the middle of the classroom, she then

explained them how their centers were going to work. They started in small groups. There was a

group for review, games, small group lesson, and technology. In the small group lesson, they

broke down the word problem to create their strip diagram to be able to solve the problem. Once

she noticed she got the hang of it, she observed them while they were solving it. There were a

few groups who got it on the first problem while other groups still need help after the second

problem, this helped Mrs. Self by knowing who understand the concept and who still needed

extra help. One of the groups were review, where there were worksheets for them to work out on
Instructional Strategies

what they already knew, if they needed help, they were going to use the help of their peers.

Another group had a game, that worked with their multiplication facts. Lastly the group worked

on their technology, where they worked on their Dream box. Mrs. Self incorporated new material

and old material during their groups for those needed help and who still need help.