Ana Parra Martin

ED127
5/06/15
In the Classroom Reflection #2
1. Background & Subject Matter
The video clip I presented was part of a 5th grade math lesson in the classroom
where I am student teaching at Linden STEAM Academy in Malden, MA. I decided to
engage the students in some early algebra, with a lesson structure that was pretty different
from what they were used to, but that complemented our curriculum books unit on
Expressions and Patterns. I used a modified version of the Dinner Tables activity
from the Tufts Early Algebra Curriculum, and framed the problem as follows: The Linden
STEAM Academy is hosting a holiday party and they want the students to help to plan
how many guests will sit together at tables that have been pushed together into a long
row. The tables were trapezoids, so that 1 table seats 5 people, 2 tables seat 8 people, etc.:

I gave each student a handout with a scaffolded T-chart, a small whiteboard and five

foam trapezoid manipulatives, to help them in figuring out the arrangement of subsequent
tables and the number of people that could sit at them.
The goal was to find a general rule that would get us straight to the number of
people that could be seated for any number of tables. Given the relationship between the
two variables in this scenario, the function becomes: 3n + 2 (where n is the number of
tables). I wanted the students to use the T-chart and drawings to identify patterns, and
begin using algebraic notation to write mathematical expressions. I also aimed to

orchestrate a productive classroom discussion about the problem, having the students
listen carefully to each others ideas and respond to them using accountable talk.
At this point in the lesson, we had discussed the number of people sitting at 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, and 10 tables, making use of drawings and the foam trapezoids, and had recorded
our results in the T-charts. The students had already noticed several patterns in the
numbers, and were excited to be trying something new in math. My next move was to
ask them about 100 tables, which was an intentional jump: a sufficiently large number
meant to discourage them from continuing to draw the tables or count by three. I wanted
the students to get a little closer to a generalization about how to solve for any number of
tables, without relying on knowing how many people can sit at previous tables. This clip
shows the students figuring out how to find the number of people sitting at 100 tables
and, in particular, one students very creative reasoning.
Fig.1 Recreation of the writing on the class whiteboard

2. Student Thinking
What about 100 tables? The class was immediately engaged and excited by
the challenge, and walking around I observed students using different strategies to figure
it out. I gave them about 5 min to grapple with the problem, and encouraged them to
work in groups and convince each other, before we discussed it as a large group.
I first called on Adam, as I noticed many other students had written something
similar on their whiteboards or worksheets. He proposed, I know that 10 dinner tables
equals 32 people, so what I did was: I multiplied 10 dinner tables by 10 and got 100, and
32 by 10 and got 320. While Adams answer was incorrect, he very articulately
explained what he did and why he did it. It is often so hard for students to do this! His
strategy was one I expected to see some students use. He multiplied both variables by the
same factor, assuming equivalent ratios. However, we had not observed this as a pattern
in previous examples, and had in fact spent some time discussing patterns that
contradicted this: If double # tables, double # people 2, and When we put 2 tables
together we lose 2 people (from the sides). It seems some students had not quite seen
those relationships clearly, and had not taken them into account when solving. Still, to
validate their ideas, I wrote 320 on the board as a potential solution to discuss.
Next, I called on Sebastian. He is a shy student who does not always raise his
hand, and is less confident in math class, so I wanted to give him a chance to shine. He
gave us the correct solution: 302 people can sit at 100 tables. After writing 302 on the
board, and asking the class to think through the two potential answers (Which one do we
think is correct, and why?), I encouraged Sebastian to explain his reasoning.
Unfortunately, he was not comfortable sharing further, and yielded the floor to another

student in his group. I realized later that Sebastian might not have really understood how
his group got that answer. He was sitting with two students who are strong in math, and
contrary to what I hoped, may not have had the patience to walk him through it. It is also
entirely possible that Sebastian never voiced his confusion to the group.
Pedro surprised me with a very clever, but convoluted, way to arrive at the correct
answer (orange and red writing in Fig.1). He began by saying, We multiplied [the
people at 10 tables] by 2, that is 64, minus 2, equals 62. I tried to write what he was
saying on the board, hoping the rest of the class could follow his line of thought, and
clarifying that his first step gave us the people at 20 tables (10 x 2 = 20 tables, so 32 x 2 =
64, 2 = 62 people). This was the rule he had come up with earlier in the activity,
when we were solving for 10 tables. He saw in the drawings that doubling the number of
tables also doubled the number of people, except two seats would be lost from the ends
when the two table chunks were pushed together (light blue writing in Fig.1). Pedro
continues, We kept multiplying 10 by 2 (the strategy I used) to get it. [] Then we
multiplied 20 times 2, then we got 40 tables. And 62 times 2 is 124, minus 2 is 122. At
this point he made a mistake in his math, as he said, Then we multiplied it by 2 again,
and we got 80 tables. And then we got 2 224 (122 x 2 = 244, not 224), and I was
unfortunately too focused on writing down what he said that I did not stop to check his
arithmetic. He went on, Then we added 20 again [] we added 62, because we have 80.
[] 222 plus 62. Here, I pressed him to clarify why he added 62 to the people at 80
tables and he explained, Because 62 is how many people at 20 tables. Pedro had
realized his doubling strategy would not get him all the way to 100 tables, so instead of
multiplying 80 by 2, he chose to add the people at 80 and at 20 tables for a total of 100

tables. At this point, I saw many confused faces (and having not yet seen his
computational mistake, was a little confused myself), so I had Pedro come up to the
board and run us through his method once again: I have a different answer now because
I saw I messed up a little. I got 282, because if you add 62 you get 284, minus 2 equals
282. [] You would have to minus 2, just like the strategy said so, so this would have to
be a 4 then you minus 2 282. The strategy he is referring to is his observation that
putting two tables together means 2 less seats. He realizes this is true whether he doubles
the tables or simply adds two chunks of tables. Since I knew the correct answer was 302,
and Pedro had clearly calculated it correctly the first time, I pressed him to show me what
he had originally done to get 302. While Pedro reviewed his math, two other students
raised their hands, and I believe they had noticed his mistake (given how they smile when
Pedro fixed it on the board!). This shows me that although many students were losing
engagement due to the complicated steps and Pedros long air time, some were still
following! I helped Pedro review his answer (So you did 242 plus 62), and he finished
his explanation: So I was right the first time, it was 302. [] 304, minus 2 gives the
right answer: 302. Although Pedro was still using previous numbers of tables to solve
the problem, his solution was definitely very ingenious and I was very impressed.
Other students not shown in this clip also came up with creative ways to solve the
problem. Samantha repeatedly added 3 from 32, the people at 10 tables, all the way to
100 tables (pink writing in Fig.1). Noah, for whom all the steps involved in Pedros
explanation were too challenging to follow, was nonetheless engaged with the problem in
his own way: he persisted in drawing the 100 tables, as a check for the correct answer.
Myo had applied Pedros original rule (times 2, minus 2) in the same way that Pedro

had, except he had not subtracted the 2 people in the middle when he added the people at
20 and 80 tables. He said he thought the rule was only for multiplication, not addition,
showing he had not quite grasped the reason behind subtracting 2. Ashley and Vanessa
tried adapting Pedros original rule to get to 100 tables by multiplication, starting from 5
tables: 5 x 5 = 25 tables, so 17 x 5 2 = 83 people; 25 x 4 = 100 tables, so 83 x 4 2 =
330 people. While they had not accounted for enough seats being lost from the sides,
their attempt at reasoning through the problem was also very clever!
It was finally Deborah, who had been working with Pedro, and was much more
articulate and clear in her explanation, who came up with the generalization: people = 3
x tables + 2, and related it to the visual representation and t-chart beautifully. In
addition, Jordan came up with the rule: people = (tables 2) x 3 + 8, which actually
simplifies to the same thing, and also related it to the drawings. Later, we used both of
these to solve the rule reversal problem: If we have 632 guests coming to the party, how
many tables do we need to seat them all?. This was a stretch for some students, but it
helped them practice working backwards as a strategy to solve word problems, which
they had previously learned in this unit.

3. Teaching Response
I put a lot of thought into planning this lesson, and structuring it with questions
that would help guide the students towards noticing patterns and eventually making a
generalization for any number of tables. I was able to successfully scaffold the use of the
T-chart by modeling on the board when they shared their results, and asked them to relate
these back to the pictures. Overall, and especially considering that it was the first time the

students did something like this in math, we had a productive discussion and came to an
understanding of the problem together. When I walked between groups, I encouraged
them to work together and nudged them in the right direction so that by the end, most
students were comfortable and could see the relationship between the variables.
Im less pleased with how I handled the particular moment in this clip. Following
Pedros reasoning was tough, and though Im glad I had him come to board to show us
what he meant, I wish I had asked him (and other students) to do this sooner. Since his
strategy was so convoluted, we had to run through it several times to ensure the whole
class was on the same page, and many of the other kids became disengaged along the
way. I also wish I had noticed and corrected his computational mistake on the spot, as
this would have avoided some of the confusion and reduced the length of his explanation.
I had intended to have the students argue over the validity of the potential
solutions, given the lines of reasoning that backed up each answer. However, we spent
too much time focusing on what Pedro had done which, while very creative, was not
necessarily in the direction I was hoping, as it still relied on previous numbers of tables
and did not take us closer to generalizing a rule. In the end, Samantha and Noah proved
that the correct answer for 100 tables was 302 people, and we had to work backwards to
explain why that was.
It was clear later on that many students still had not understood the reason for the
subtract 2 step in Pedros strategy. Even though he had explained earlier that, When
you put 2 tables together, you lose 2 people on the sides, and I had written it on the
board, I wish I had pressed the other students to think about this more carefully. I could
have had the students relate this important observation to more examples. In addition, to

get the students closer to a generalization, I could also follow up with questions such as,
Would Pedros rule work for finding the number of people that can sit at any number of
tables?, or Could we still use Pedros rule to figure out the people at 20 tables, if we
didnt know how many people sat at 10 tables?. Although the students did eventually
arrive at the general rule, many needed more hints than I had hoped. I could have better
supported by encouraging them to look at the drawings closely from the very beginning.
Better monitoring, selecting and sequencing of the students ideas as they worked
independently would have allowed me to facilitate this discussion to keep the whole class
engaged and understanding. Also, if a similar moment happened again, I might ask the
students about 50 tables, instead of 100. Even if Pedro had tried his strategy on this
number, there would have been less steps and it might have been easier for the rest of the
class to follow. Once we had found the rule, changing from finding the number of people
to finding the number of tables was tough for some students. I could have thought about
splitting the class at this point, and giving the students who had mastered the task a new
scenario with, for example, hexagon tables, while I worked with the rest of the students to
fully understand the original problem. I had actually prepared an easier scenario of
trapezoid tables without the two people at the ends (making the function simply 3n), but I
never used it. Balancing the different abilities in the classroom was definitely one of the
bigger challenges during this lesson.

4. Planning & Structured Response

I have more recently had the opportunity to teach a similar, early algebra lesson to
my students. I made changes to the overall structure based on what I learned worked and

did not work in this lesson, and I observed definite improvements in the flow of the
activity, as well as student learning outcomes. For my Tiling a Patio lesson, in which
we explored a 2n + 6 function relating the numbers of black and white tiles in a series of
patio sizes, I provided a worksheet that broke down solving the problem into different
parts, as well as a scaffolded T-chart for them to record their data. I gave the students 5
min of private think time before joining up for group work, as I wanted them to
familiarize themselves with the problem. This ensured that all students were able to
access the task, as the first few questions on their worksheet were simple to complete. I
brought the discussion back as a class several times during the lesson to get everyone on
the same page, but overall the students had more time to work independently on the task.
This allowed me to walk around the room, checking in more frequently with students
who needed the most support. I used what I learned from reading 5 Practices for
Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions (Smith & Stein) to more carefully
anticipate what student ideas might come up, to monitor these ideas as they worked, and
to select which students I wanted to have share their ideas with the class and in what
order. I was able to get more students involved in the class discussion this time around,
and the lesson was a success!
If I was to teach the Dinner Tables lesson again to a similar group of students, I
might consider applying some of the changes I included in the Tiling a Patio activity.
When I taught this lesson to a small group of my students last semester (using square
tables instead of trapezoids), it went smoothly, but I had also picked students of similar
math abilities. Considering this type of math lesson was new to the class, I think it was

good to keep it a little more teacher-directed. However, focusing on the more struggling
students during group work can help get whole class engaged.

5. Peer Discussion
Sharing and discussing this teaching moment with my MAT peers helped me
reflect on my practice. I was able to further understand my students reasoning, as they
supported me in noticing what they were saying why. My peers gave me valuable
feedback on how to address some of the questions and concerns I had about the lesson.
To engage more students in the conversation, and ensure that they are really listening to
each other, my peers suggested I could have them try to clarify for each other instead of
doing it myself. I could encourage them to talk directly to their peers, instead of to me,
and have the students ask and respond to each others questions.
After giving this early algebra lesson some more thought, I would like to ask my
peers how other math lessons could be made similarly engaging for students. These types
of math investigations are appealing because they are like puzzles that can be solved in
several different ways. Many math topics in elementary school are presented as dry, rote
learning of steps or algorithms, which can kill the spirit of creative problem solving.
Sometimes though, it feels as though that is the best way to get certain concepts across. I
am wondering how a better balance can be struck.
Overall, discussing this teaching moment with my MAT peers not only helped to
talk through my questions, but also validate them as issues that we all struggle with as
new teachers. Knowing that we will continue to struggle with them for some time is both
scary and encouraging!