Dana Davis

ELD 375
Dr. Bulgar
Spring 2015
Field Report 2 Observation of Teaching and Learning
Mrs. G 2nd Grade I. F. Elementary School
On March 26, 2015, I interviewed Mrs. G about the days math lesson on measuring.
In this lesson, Mrs. G hopes that the students will learn that in. stands for inch, they will
learn what an inch is and practice measuring with an inch ruler. She got the students
thinking about math early in the day by asking them to share what they thought in.
meant, during morning meaning. Mrs. G planned her lesson using the 2nd grade
Investigations math curriculum lesson, The Land of Inch. She will break this lesson up
into several parts and have the students regroup on the carpet after each part. She will
begin by reading them the story, The Land of Inch which is a story about a kingdom of
athletes who want to measure how far they can jump, and a princess who wants the athletes
to build her a castle using inch bricks. After the story, she will give each pair of math
partners a sheet of inch bricks, have them cut them out, and use them to answer the first
question on the accompanying worksheet. After this, she will regroup on the carpet,
discuss the results of the first question and introduce the inch brick measuring tool
which looks similar to the inch bricks, except these are connected. They will split back into
their pairs, cut out the inch brick tools and glue their single inch bricks on the bottom to
match the bricks on the top of the tool. Then the students will use the tool to answer the
remaining worksheet questions. Mrs. G will circulate around the classroom to observe
each groups progress and give assistance where needed. When everyone is done, they will
regroup on the carpet again and discuss the answers to the questions to assess what the
students have learned. Mrs. G hopes that all students learn what an inch is, that in. is
the abbreviation for inch, how to measure with an inch ruler, and why it is important to
have a system for measuring things.
Mrs. G began the lesson by asking, What can we use to measure something?
Students gave answers such as, your feet, your hands, centimeters, kilometers,
and yards. In this classroom, the teacher has students paired by matching ability level
for math lessons. I randomly chose to observe A and V. I sat next to them while they were
on the carpet, so that I could listen to their conversations and I sat with them in their work
space while they completed the activities. When they received the first sheet with the
individual inch bricks to cut out, they cut the paper in half so each one would have some
bricks to cut out. They noticed that the bricks were uniform and folded the paper on the
lines, so they could cut out several at the same time. When they were done, they measured
the width of the paper by laying the bricks end to end across the paper. One laid the inch
bricks while the other counted. They discussed whether or not they thought the bricks
should touch of if they should leave space between. They decided they should touch but not
overlap. They measured the width of the paper 9 inches. When they regrouped on the
carpet, Mrs. G took all of the groups measurements and listed them on the whiteboard.
They ranged from 8.5 inches to 11 inches. She asked the students to turn and talk about
why the measurements are not all the same. A and V said, Maybe they cut the bricks
wrong or they overlapped the bricks. This was a half day and at this point in the lesson,

the teacher had to stop because the normal daily routine was altered, periods were
shortened, and it was time for the students to go to lunch.
After lunch, Mrs. G decided to finish the math lesson instead of doing readers
workshop. She began by regrouping everyone on the carpet, reviewed what they had done
so far, and gave them instructions to cut out the measuring tool, glue their single inch
bricks on to the bottom half to match the top and use the tool to answer the remaining
questions. V and A again cut the paper in half, so that each could cut out a portion of the
tool. They asked for my help to show them where to glue the two pieces of the ruler
together. I asked them if they remembered the directions Mrs. G gave, they said they did
and glued the tool properly. As they were gluing the bricks onto the tool, V said, Were
making a ruler! A then said, Were making inches and centimeters! V joked, Why is a
ruler called a ruler? Because measuring rules the world! They measured the width of the
paper using the tool and at first they answered, 9 & bricks, and then they selfcorrected and said, No, its 8 & , but they wrote 9 bricks down on the paper after
saying the answer was 8 & . The next question asked them to measure the length of a
craft stick. They must have been confused about the question because they used the craft
stick to measure the width of the paper instead of the measuring tool and answered, 1 &
craft sticks. Question three asked them to measure the length of the paper. They used the
measuring tool to measure the paper top to bottom. V said, Its 11 & , A said, No, its
11. They discussed and re-measured and agreed on 11 bricks. Question four asked them
to measure the length of a glue stick. Again, it seems they were confused because they used
the glue stick to measure the length of the paper and answered, 3 & glue sticks. When
the students regrouped on the carpet to discuss and compare their answers, Mrs. G asked V
and A what their answer was for question one, they responded 9 and Mrs. G asked them
to measure again. When they measured again, they said, Oh, its 8 & because its only a
half of a brick. Mrs. G reviewed the rest of the questions and it appeared to me that V
and A didnt even notice that they had used the wrong object to measure for two of the
questions.
In reviewing the lesson with Mrs. G, in general, she thought the lesson went well and
that the students did grasp all of the concepts of measuring with inches. She assigned them
homework which she will use to assess each individual students understanding. She
believes that most mistakes will be made by the students not grasping the concept that they
can measure of a brick. She pointed out that breaking the lesson into small parts and
regrouping on the carpet between each step is the key to making this lesson work. She
explained that if you try to give the students all three sheets and instructions from start to
finish, there would be many questions and a lot of confusion. Breaking the lesson into
smaller steps allows the students to focus on one thing at a time and connect each new
concept with the previous one. Although Mrs. G believes this is the best way to teach this
lesson, she does admit that it can be time consuming as we clearly saw today when we ran
out of time to complete and had to finish later in the day. When I explained to her the
mistake that V and A had made by using the craft stick and glue stick to measure instead of
using the tool to measure the craft stick and the glue stick, she pointed out the fact that
even when she circulates to observe all of the groups progress, there is no way that she can
catch every mistake and that this is something you should always keep in mind and be
conscious of, since it is important to assess that all students are learning. This is the reason
that the lesson is ended with a whole group closing. During closing, the students gathered

back on the rug and she had an opportunity to address any mistakes she noticed while
circulating during group work and then model the correct solution. This usually leads to
A-ha moments as the students recognize mistakes and correct their thinking. She is
confident that mistakes will be caught and cleared up through closing discussion,
homework and in future lessons.
Mrs. G ended the lesson by talking to the students about what they will be doing
moving forward. She told them that they would be doing more measuring for the next
several days and that when they review tonights homework tomorrow, they will make a
chart with measuring tips based on the concepts that they may be having a hard time
grasping. The next lesson she plans to teach is very similar to this lesson. She will begin
the next lesson with a review of this lesson and then continue to read the story The Land
of Inch which continues as new measuring concepts are introduced. Tomorrows lesson
will involve measuring clothes, buildings, and how far the children in The Land of Inch can
jump.