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ELEMENTARY UNIT/ LESSON PLANNING COMMENTARY

Your Name: Jenna Fishoff
Date: 4/30/2014
Unit/Lesson Title: Unit 1 Lesson 1 Place Value through Millions
Grade Level and Content Area: 4th Grade Math (3
rd
grade class)
Number of Students 27
Total Amount of Time: 1 hour

1. Learning Goals/Standards: What concepts, essential questions or key skills will be your focus? What do
you want your students to know at the end of this unit/lesson?

Students will be able to read and write numbers to the millions place.

2. Rationale: Why is this content important for your students to learn and how does it promote social justice?
It is important for students to learn because basic subtraction is essential for many tasks students will encounter
in their future, such as balancing a checkbook, for example.

3. Identifying and supporting language needs: What are the language demands of the unit/lesson? How do
you plan to support students in meeting their English language development needs (including academic
language)?

The language demands are very basic. Students will be need to demonstrate understanding of key words: Place
value chart, standard form, word form, expanded form. I will put lesson-specific vocabulary on the board to
explicitly review with students during the lesson as they write them down in their math journals.

4. Accessing prior knowledge and building upon students backgrounds, interests and needs: How do
your choices of instructional strategies, materials and sequence of learning tasks connect with your students
backgrounds, interests, and needs?

In order to bring the lesson to my students, I will need to pique their interests by choosing areas in sample math
problems where I can include a theme or connect to a hobby that they like so that what theyre learning
becomes relevant and meaningful their lives outside of school. I chose to talk about Loom Rubber Bands for
making jewelry, its the big fad these days.

5. Accommodations: What accommodations or support will you use for all students (including English
Language Learners and students with special educational needs, i.e. GATE students and students with IEPs)?
Explain how these features of your learning and assessment tasks will provide all students access to the
curriculum and allow them to demonstrate their learning.

After guided instruction, I will have the class work on independent practice worksheet while After guided
instruction, I will have the class work on independent practice problems while work with a group of students
that are lower level, or struggled to get the correct answer during the Check for Understanding step in Swun
Math. I will continue to guide these students using manipulatives on a place-value mat. Students who are
advanced and complete their work early will be allowed to help their peers who are struggling because as they
reteach the lesson, they reinforce their understanding of the problem.

6. Theory: Which theories support your unit/lesson plan? (explain the connections)

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Using a place value chart and manipulatives are great visual tools that engage students in an effective way.
They can be used to represent complex processes in a simplified manner, and can help students identify values
of numbers and place value names.

During this lesson, I scaffold using a place value chart and manipulatives to identify place value in a number.
After I scaffold this process, the students will be able to identify value of a number on their own. Scaffolding
will be essential for all students successful learning. The instructional strategy, scaffolding, can fall under
Vygotskys theory of the zone of proximal development (ZPD), which has been defined as the distance
between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential
development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more
capable peers (Vygotsky). Vygotsky believed that when a student is at the ZPD for a particular task, providing
the appropriate assistance will give the student enough of an improvement to achieve the task on their own.
Thus, if I scaffold these skills necessary for successful completion of the first draft, the students will eventually
master these skills and will be able to complete them again on their own, without the scaffold.

The students will think-pair-share numerous times throughout the lesson as I ask them questions to assess prior
knowledge as well as during the lesson during guided practice.. This cooperative discussion strategy provides
students time and structure for thinking and it enables them to formulate individual ideas and share them with a
classmate and even the entire class. This can fall under sociocultural theory because learning is collaborative,
teacher and students are both involved in the learning process. Students participation in social interactions
promotes learning and deeper understanding of the concept being taught.

7. Reflection: (answer the following questions after the teaching of this unit/lesson)



**COMMENTARY IS REQUIRED FOR ALL UCLA ELEMENTARY FORMAL OBSERVATIONS **