What worked and how do you know? I think the first day of my unit definitely worked the best.

Although this was mainly review for most of the students, the pattern blocks really helped the students conceptualize fractions. The students also really liked the warm up activity for that day about finding fractions in the classroom. This activity allowed the more advanced learners to extend their learning and find more complicated fractions in the room, while struggling learners were able to focus on a simpler fraction. The pattern blocks helped the students to show me what they already knew about fractions, and build on prior knowledge. The students really enjoyed the hands-on activity and getting to show their work on the document camera to the whole class. I asked the students to make a certain shape with the pattern blocks, which gave the students a great deal of freedom and differentiation. Advanced learners were able to come up with many more ways to make the given shape and were able to show this to the rest of the class and explain it to them. The students really understood the equivalent fraction idea based on their work with the pattern blocks. The CLD structure allowed them the opportunity to tell me what they already knew and share their knowledge with the rest of the class. Because this was the introduction and many of the students had prior knowledge, the students enjoyed the activities to support their prior knowledge and build on it without being lectured and taking notes.

What didnt work and how do you know? The third day of the unit was least successful for me. The students seemed to understand the lesson and the concept of improper fractions and mixed numbers; however, it was hard for me to teach converting. The use of the pattern blocks really helped the struggling learners to physically see the difference between mixed numbers and improper fractions. I also was able to

see them use this knowledge the following day while my teacher was teaching. I think the lesson was successful for the struggling learners to form a base for the concept, but I dont think my assessment reflected that. My teacher suggested that we use converting questions of the postassessment; however, we didnt end up covering conversion fully in the third day of my unit. Although the students could show me with pattern blocks and on the worksheet they completed, we never went over the formula and steps to converting. I think because I didnt explicitly explain the steps in converting, some of the students were confused during the post assessment.

How will you apply what you learned to the next unit? During this unit, I learned that the students really enjoyed the use of manipulatives and found them very helpful in forming a knowledge base. I think that the use of pattern blocks and the paper cutting activities really supported the struggling learners in my class and helped them to conceptualize fractions much better. While I think this strategy was useful for them, many of my more advanced learners didnt need these strategies because they already had a conceptual understanding of fractions. In the future, I think it would be helpful to use these strategies of making meaning in small groups, rather than with the whole class. I found that the CLD format was good for the introduction unit, but I found it really hard to avoid explicitly explaining certain strategies. In the future, I could see myself using these strategies and teaching method for some lessons, but I really struggled using it for a full unit. I think that the CLD method can definitely be used in other subjects, but for math it was hard for me to explain formulas and the actually computation part of fractions. What I found most useful in my unit was making sure that I always had time for reflection with the students. It was really helpful for me to see what the students understood and

what I could work on more with them the following day. I often leave out time for reflection, but this was definitely useful and very helpful to the students and me. The exit slips that I used are something I would definitely use for future units because the students were able to show me what they knew or what they were still confused about without having to show the entire class and risk being embarrassed.