Thimmel 1 Justine Thimmel Dr.

Bulgar ELD 375 November 1, 2013

Lesson 1 reflection

For my first math lesson in Miss Refsins class, I taught her routine of the calendar, clock, coins, and number line with Miss Knott. This lesson is taught right before lunch so around about 11 to 11:15. The lesson is not taught at their desks. They are asked to come to the back corner of the room for the first part (calendar, clock, and coins) and the second part they are asked to sit in the front on the rug facing the number line. The objective of the lesson is to allow the students to think of their own ways to problem solve each part of the lesson and collaborate together on how they arrived at their solutions. This can be done either through addition (which the children often do) or sometimes subtraction. I felt that I wrote a very well and thorough lesson plan. However, I feel my actual lesson did not go as smoothly as my plan. Even though Miss Refsin does this every day with the students, actually standing up in front of them was very difficult. Miss Knott started the lesson off with the calendar and the clock. This gave me time to prepare myself. However, Miss Knott had some trouble so this started me off poorly. I am not saying it is Miss Knotts fault, I just need to work on my confidence and having her not do so well did not help me feel confident in doing well myself. When I moved the students over to the front of the room, I began to do better. I can say that I am able to transition a lesson well. I called them over by birthdays. Once I had all the children over to the front of the room and had their attention, I began to go over the number line. I felt that I did a better job in teaching

Thimmel 2 this because it was almost like a fresh start to the lesson. I knew the students met the objective because even when I forgot a part of the lesson, they knew what I should be asking and what should come next. They all had different idea and thoughts about each section and helped each other when needed. The lesson succeeded when the students were the ones coming up with mathematician ideas. I knew I didnt succeed when I tried to say how I would come up with an answer because the students then became confused. The students were mostly engaged in the beginning. They began to become distracted when a child was describing one of his answers and the answer became too long. Students began to play with their clothes, talk to one another, and look around the room when they were not engaged. When they were engaged they were eager to answer and all were raising their hands. The lesson I would teach after this lesson would be a Math Secret that has to do with some kind of addition. This lesson would help lead up to addition so using a following lesson to further their schemas on addition would help the idea sink in for them. I feel that after reflecting on this lesson, I would do a number of things differently. I would try and remember my objective better. Since I am so used to showing how to do something rather than allowing someone to figure it out with guiding questions, I had trouble teaching the first part of my lesson. I was so focused on following my lesson plan that I forgot to allow the students to be the mathematicians. I also feel that if I had made the lesson more of my own I would have been more confident. Confidence is key and in time and more practice I feel I will be where I want and need to be.