The first thing I did was go through the GCG (Global Concept Guide) and refresh myself with the content. Anytime I got confused, or noticed that I continually repeated a mistake, I would document that. I also worked out all of the problems that I was going to assign to the students, to make sure that I fully understood them. The benefit of doing this was that when they had questions during the lesson, I was fully prepared to walk them through it and also I was able to predict some common misconceptions that the students might have, based on the misconceptions I might have had while working these out.
I did not write out a formal USF lesson plan for this lesson, due to time constraints, but I feel like I did produce a thorough plan. I started the lesson by making connections to their previous lesson, ad then go back in their notebook, and turn and talk. I also decided, that since they had never been introduced to exponents before, that I would makes the connection between base ten blocks and place values before I introduced the essential question. The essential question had the word exponents in it, and I felt as thought it would confuse them if I had them write it in their notebook first, because they would be too busy thinking about what that word might mean, instead of concentrating on the instruction. This choice proved to be a good one. I feel like I had the attention of the class, and felt like they made the connection to the concept behind exponents, before getting tripped u with the vocabulary.
One thing I noticed during my lesson is that I kept getting active participation from the same 5 students. I had to continually call on the same few students in order to keep the conversation going. Part way through my lesson, I realized that I was not able to assess what the students were really getting, because I wasn't hearing from more than a few of them. I simply said to them "I need to see some new hands", and made it clear that I wasn't going to move on until there was more participation from some new students. After this, I started seeing some new hands. I also feel that I created an environment where they felt safe to share because they were very quick to share with me, as well as their classmates, when they were confused about anything. They really grasped the concept and we moved quickly through the lesson.
i was very excited at how well they understood and I felt ready to move them on to the next EQ the following day.
Some things I would have like to have done differently was have a sticky note in front of me so that I could tally how many times I called on each student. If I had kept track of which students were actively participating, I would have known earlier in the lesson that I was not focusing on all parts of the room, and could've corrected the issue much sooner. I would also have like to have been a little louder at the start of the lesson. I felt like it took them a few minutes get settled and ready for me to start. Maybe an increase in my volume when beginning would let them know that they need to be ready to learn.
Something amazing that I got from this was the opportunity to kind of reflect on the lesson and consider adaptations that I could make before teaching it to the second block of the day. So for the second block, I kept tallies of who was called on, I created a graphic organizer for the students so that they wouldn't have to spend so much time drawing a place value chart, and I increased my volume and told them that "I'll know you're ready to start when you're sitting in LLP (Listening, Learning Position) with your math notebook in front of you. Another benefit was having a PRT (Partnership Resource Teacher) observe my lesson. She gave me some amazing feedback, some of which I noticed when I was reflecting, and some things that I didn't even realize I did until she brought it to my attention. This was great. Having an additional perspective allowed me to be aware of things that I didn't initially notice, and I have the opportunity to make these adjustments when I plan for my next lesson. If you click on the link at the bottom, you can read the feedback that was sent to me from the PRT that observed me, and see how her observations compare to my personal reflections. After this, I'm ready to start planning for my next lead lesson so that I can made some adjustments and see if I can better my instruction for the benefit of my students.
Graphic Organizer
PRT Feedback