TERM III ASSIGNMENT: MATHEMATICS CORE DECISIONS: WHAT: This mathematics lesson will build off of a science lesson

in which students will have created a model solar system. The science will provide an engaging context within which students will explore the concept of rate.
Comment [ce1]: You are listing standards here which is not what should go in this section. You need to talk about what rate is, how it is related and built off other concepts, what students need to understand in order to understand rate, and what might be difficult for them. Consult Chapin & Johnson and add rewrite this section.

HOW: Along with the content, I want my students to have an opportunity to work collaboratively on meaningful and challenging math problems. However, discussion-based math learning is not a norm in my classroom, and thus could not be implemented without clear expectations for how it will look. Therefore, my lesson will follow two parallel progressions: as the students tackle more challenging material, they will also be expected to work more and more collaboratively. I will begin with a short introduction, during which I will tie-in the science lesson from the previous day to hook the students in. From there, I will lead some guided practice with two word problems; these word problems will allow the students to ease into the concept of rate by working within a familiar context (they will be about biking). They will also prime the students for the final word problem. It is also during the guided practice that I will try to lay some of the groundwork for the collaborative work to follow, by employing some of the talk moves cited by Shindelar (2009). As the students move into collaborative group work, I will also attempt to do some social coaching as the need arises (Shindelar, 2009). The lesson will conclude with a wrap-up discussion centered on the final word problem. This will also serve as a final, formative assessment of the students understanding of the content.

Comment [ce2]: Why? What are the word problems about?

WHY: The students in my classroom have very little opportunity to work collaboratively, especially during math time. I do not expect to overturn established classroom practices and for a discussion-based, collaborative math class to suddenly flourish. Nonetheless, I do want to give the students a chance to experience it, and I also want to take the opportunity to practice this particular type of teaching. Furthermore, it pertains to my inquiry question about how to re-engage academically marginalized students (two such students will be in my small group). I would like my students to begin to see each other as assets within the classroom. In the context of math, I would like them to see that their peers may have different but effective ways of solving problems, and that solving math problems can be done collaboratively, not just individually. I chose this particular content rate as an expression of a ratio because it simultaneously reviews a concept at which they have already looked while laying a foundation for concepts to be covered in-depth later on. These students have done some work with rate, but the results on their homework have been inconsistent, suggesting that they could benefit from further review. This area of focus, then, seems particularly relevant for my group of students.

Pedagogical focus?

LESSON PLAN:

OBJECTIVES: Students will be able to cooperatively solve a word problem involving the comparison of two different rates. Collaborate with peers to solve word problems, and verbalize strategies for solving word problems. Common Core Standards addressed in this lesson:

Comment [ce3]: Do you also expect that they will be able to solve word problems involving rates?

CCSS-M 6.RP 2 (Understand the concept of a unit rate a/b associated with a ratio a:b
with b 0, and use rate language in the context of a ratio relationship. ) CCSS-M 6.RP 3a (Make tables of equivalent ratios relating quantities with wholenumber measurements, find missing values in the tables) CCSS-M 6.RP 3b (Solve unit rate problems including those involvingconstant speed)

MATERIALS NEEDED: Chalkboard and chalk, pencils, paper, ratio table worksheet.

HOOK: I will begin by recalling the science activity from the previous day. All of the students in this group will have participated in that activity. We will quickly discuss some of the highlights from that lesson, before I explain that our math lesson will build off of some of the new knowledge about the solar system that the students will have gained. I will tell the students that they will get the opportunity to act as space explorers later on, but first we have to do a little training. (5 minutes)
Comment [ce4]: I think it would make sense to tie the purpose of the lesson on rates in more directly. Can you talk about how speed is measured in space or pose some sort of question based off your science lesson (how fast do you think ) and then transition into how we measure speeds as rates?

GUIDED INSTRUCTION: I will begin by providing a refresher on rate by posing some easy problems to the group and talking through the solutions. These easy problems will not be related to the science lesson, but will be easily relatable for the students. Something like, If you can bike 10 miles in an hour, how many miles can you bike in 2 hours? 5 hours? After that, I will provide a rate problem with different information: If you are biking somewhere 15 miles away, and it takes you three hours, how fast ar e you biking? In both

cases, I will allow time for all students to come to an answer. This portion of guided instruction will function sort of like a number talk, as I ask students to explain their strategies and see if we can come to a group conclusion on the solutions. After this, I will transition into the science tie-in. I will ask the students if speed has to be measured in miles per hour. If students say yes, then I will ask them why they think so. In the spirit of number talks, I will withhold judgment on the students thinking. Either way, I will begin to talk about how scientists often measure distances in space, because the distances are so vast. I will introduce the astronomical unit (AU, defined as 149,597,871 km), asking students why it might be beneficial to create a unit like this. Then, to get them more comfortable using AUs as a unit, I will hand out a worksheet with a table that needs to be completed. At the top, it will read: A spaceship can travel 3 AUs per hour. Using this information, complete the table below. You may use a calculator. Time (hours) 1 2 18 72 45.5 Distance traveled (AUs) 3
Comment [ce5]: Also think about ways you can visually represent their solution strategies. Drawings or diagrams are very helpful here.

The students may choose to work independently or with peers. When completed, we will review the answers and ask how they came to them. (20 minutes)

GROUP WORK: Finally, the class will work on a difficult problem involving rate:

You are members of an elite NASA team that is planning for the first mission to the outer planets of Uranus and Neptune. This mission will provide important information about these planets. Engineers have created two prototype spacecrafts for the journey, which are faster than any spacecraft ever made. The first ship travels at 3.5 AUs per day. The other has turbo boost technology, and can travel at the incredible speed of 7 AUs per day. When the turbo boost runs out, it will travel at 2.5 AUs per day. As a team, you must decide which ship will reach Neptune faster. Make the right choice and you will be heroes! Make the wrong choice, however, and the president will be very disappointed To encourage collaboration, I will only make two copies of this word problem. They will be placed in manila folders in the back of the room, on which TOP SECRET is written. I will have some extra copies with me, however, in case students decide they want their own copy to read off of. However, having only two copies available initially will necessarily lead the students to work in one or two groups. The wording of the problem also encourages this. I will provide the rest of the lesson for them to work on this problem (with the exception of five minutes at the end, which I will save for a discussion). As they are working, I will bounce between the groups, listening in and offering to clear up points of confusion. (15 minutes) CLOSING DISCUSSION: The students will reveal their answer and explain how they reached it. If there is time, I would also like to ask students how they felt about working as a group. I will collect their work, which will also serve as an assessment. (5 minutes) Total time: 45 minutes Ryan, This is a good start. I like the overall structure allowing them to use their own strategies (and share multiple strategies) to solve simple rate problems and then use that understanding to solve a more complex problem, with time for discussion at the end. There are two main suggestions I have at this point: 1) think about how to frame the purpose of the lesson in the beginning, perhaps by talking about speed in the context of space and then moving to speed in more familiar contexts (mph) then back to space. Framing a lesson around a real question (problem) that will be answered is a great way to increase motivation. 2) explore the use of visual representations to help students understand rate problems. The double number line is a good way to do this(heres my attempt to draw one on the computer)
10 1 2 3 miles hrs Formatted: Font: Garamond, 8 pt, Font color: Red Comment [ce6]: Ok, so this seems engaging, but Im worried about the difficulty of the problem. Do you want to make sure they understand it before letting them go off on their own? Is there any vocabulary that might be difficult?

Comment [ce7]: 5 minutes isnt really enough time for much explanation. Can you save 10 minutes for this so you can have them really share, and you can try to draw out the important mathematics? Comment [ce8]: What will you be looking for? Here you need to go back to the what section (which you will rewrite) and create a checklist that details the components of student understanding you are going to be looking for. Remember that rate involves multiplicative reasoning, so that should be an important component.

Also, make sure you complete the remaining portions of the lesson plan template, choose a pedagogical focus (it could be the use of representations or discourse), and create an assessment checklist. This requires delving more deeply into what is involved in understanding rate problems (the what section of your narrative). It will be worth the extra work.

FINAL ANALYSIS: This lesson was held on a Thursday afternoon, while the majority of the class was participating in a weekly dance class. My small group consisted of the five boys who choose not to do dance. Fortunately, we were able to use the regular classroom as a space. We pushed five desks together to create small table, so that each student could see each other as well as the blackboard. In the group, I had two students with IEPs, one who has been recommended for an IEP meeting, and two relatively high-performing students. The first three students tend to need considerable support during math, while the other two do not.

A couple of unfortunate developments occurred in the lead-up to this lesson, which I think are worth mentioning. First, while I had intended for all five of these students to participate in my science lesson the previous day, only two of them were ultimately able to. As a result, we spent more time reviewing the science content from that lesson than I had planned. Seeking to turn the responsibility for discourse over to the students right away, I asked one of the students who was there to summarize the lesson; he did so very thoroughly, and I overheard one student say, Aw man, I wish I couldve been there. By reviewing the model solar system we had constructed, all of the students were able to share at least some understanding of the vast planetary distances that would be incorporated into the math. The second development, briefly, is that the students ended up taking their Benchmark Assessment in Mathematics that morning. I worried that they would be burnt out on math for the day. Fortunately, that proved not to be the case (more on that later).

I designed this lesson to encourage collaboration, as well as reflection and communication. I did this for two reasons. First, I agree that [r]eflecting and communicating are the processes

through which understanding develops (Hiebert et al., 1997). Second, I felt that these emphases would increase the confidence and motivation of the students, especially the strugglers (Gilles, 2007). I developed tasks that I felt could allow room for these emphases in the lesson. Thus, I attempted to create word problems that the students would find either relevant (the biking problems) or exciting (the space problems). I specifically worded the final word problem to emphasis communication, referring to the students as an elite team of NASA engineers [emphasis added]. I especially liked the final word problem because I felt it represented something closer to the way that math is done in the real world: collaborating with fellow professionals to solve challenging problems.

I did sense that pre-existing classroom norms would be an obstacle in my pursuit of a more collaborative, communication-oriented math lesson, however. These students are used to a type of math instruction that is heavily oriented toward instrumental understanding and test preparation (Skemp, date unknown). Therefore, I came into this lesson prepared to speak explicitly about (or directly model) what I meant when, for instance, I asked students to explain their work. This turned out to be only partially the case, however. As we worked on the bike problems, the students did an admirable job of standing at the blackboard in front of their peers and explaining their work, including both students with IEPs, whose confidence levels are quite low after years of academic struggles. In her comments, my Penn mentor noted that this was quite impressive, and was a testament to how comfortable the students must have felt to take that risk. The students tended only to verbalize their process, however, and not their reasoning. For example, one student explained that he multiplied ten times two, and I got twenty. He drew the numbers in the standard algorithm form and wrote the answer. When I probed for more, often by asking why they did this or that, they

seemed to grow more uncomfortable. Because confidence and motivation were important foci of my lesson, I made sure to avoid keeping any particular student on the spot for too long.