PPAT Task 4

A. Describe your classroom. Include the grade level, content area, subject matter, and number of students. Provide relevant information about any of your students with special needs. a. This is a 5th grade classroom that teaches math, language arts, writing, and social studies. There are 26 students in this class. There are 12 females in this classroom and 14 males. There are three students who get served for ELL. There are also five students who get GATIS pull outs and four who are in an advanced math program. There are six students who receive RTI support. B. Describe any physical, social, behavioral, or developmental factors that may impact the instruction that occurs in your classroom. Mention any linguistic, cultural, or health considerations that may also impact teaching and learning in your classroom. a. Four students have a first language that is not English. One students religious views prevent him from participating in specific celebrations. Seven students in this classroom are ADD/ADHD. One student also has speech issues. C. Describe any factors related to the school and surrounding community that may impact the teaching and learning that occurs in your classroom. a. This school is one in a low income area. They receive government funds and many students receive free or reduced lunch. Many of the students within my class do not have regular access to technology and may need more instruction before beginning our lesson. A. Explain how the selected content standards and learning goal(s) are appropriate for the lesson and your students' learning needs. a. The standard that this lesson will be addressing is SC State Math Standard 5-5.6 Apply procedures to determine the amount of elapsed time in hours, minutes, and seconds within a 24-hour period (a.m. and p.m.). The learning goal for this lesson is that students will be able to determine the amount of elapsed time in hours and minutes accurately within a 24 hr time period. This is an appropriate lesson for students because they have worked with telling times in previous grades. They have also reviewed telling time this year. It is also appropriate for these students because they are now starting to ask questions about when they will finish up lessons and activities based on how long the activities will last. B. How did your students' prior knowledge and background information influence your planning process?

a. The students prior knowledge of working with clocks to tell time lets me know that they are now ready to move on to more complex standards and concepts. They have also mastered subtractions and addition which will be vital for the students to understand before learning elapsed time. A. What research-based instructional strategies do you plan to use with students to engage them in the following? a. content area language a. I planned to use content area language while instructing the lesson and on their assignments to help familiarize students with the vocabulary. This will help them recognize different word phrasings on standardized tests and in future classes. By hearing and using these content words they will slowly become more comfortable using this language. b. critical thinking a. I planned for the students to answer word problems as a future homework/class work assignment. The concept of elapsed time is one that already requires critical thinking skills. Students need to be able to problem solve when reading a word problem and decide what information is important within the passage. c. Inquiry a. Students were inquiring about the hands on clocks as they manipulated them. They were also inquiring about the concept before the lesson by watching the brainpop video online and playing some of the games before hand. d. reading integrated within the content area a. Students will be integrating reading into this lesson by evaluating elapsed time word problems. They will also be integrating their ELA test taking strategies of circling important information within the problem, crossing through unnecessary information in the problem, and underlining important and key works in the directions.

B. How will each of these instructional strategies enhance your teaching skills and improve your students' learning? a. Content area language: a. By getting in the habit now of always using content area language I will insure that my students are always exposed to higher level vocabulary and prepared for testing. This helps improve the students learning because they are cognizant of these content words and are able to use them in their everyday math. This also helps them feel a sense of accomplishment and is not so fearful of the topics when they hear these words in the future.

b. Critical thinking: a. By making sure that I always allow for critical thinking within my lessons I will be ensuring that my students are stronger thinkers than they would be otherwise which will help them in all areas of school and life. By asking them critical thinking questions they are able to understand why a concept is important and connect it to their everyday lives, which will help keep them engaged in the lesson. c. Inquiry: a. By allowing students to work to discover their own answers these students are developing a pride and responsibility for their own learning, which will not only help them in school but within their lives. By using my lessons to foster a love and skill for inquiry it will help students be lifelong learners. It will also keep them for being afraid of doing research and working hard to problem solve. d. Reading integrated within the content area: a. Studies have shown that the best way to teach a subject is through the integration with other subjects. By specifically giving my students word problems they are working on their reading skills throughout the math lesson. They are also integrating their test taking strategies which will be important for them throughout their schooling career. A. Describe one activity that is the main focus of the lesson plan. Explain how that activity is designed to anticipate and address student learning needs. a. The activity that is the main focus of this lesson was for the students to find their partner and complete an elapsed time activity. In this activity students are given time cards. The students place all the cards face down and each partner chooses one clock to turn over. The first clock that is turned over will be the start time and the second will be the end time. In their notebooks students will then calculate the elapsed time between the two clocks. This addresses students learning needs within this classroom because these students are extremely social learners and by allowing them the opportunity to work with a partner and correct each other mistakes they are absorbing more information than if I was lecturing.

B. Describe how you will monitor student learning during the course of the lesson. a. To motor the students' learning during this lesson I will walk around and observe the classroom. I will stop at each partner set and watch as they complete on or more of the card sets. If the students are accurately completing they activity I will encourage them to keep up the good work. If a group is struggling or completing the activity inaccurately I will stop and rework the problem with the students and clear up any misconceptions.

C. What work samples will you require the students to submit as part of your assessment of student learning resulting from the lesson? (The work can be created either during or after the lesson.) How will these responses be integrated into the lesson plan? Provide a rationale for your choice of student work. a. I will require the students to submit their notebooks with their work and answers from the clock activity. I will also require them to submit their homework for that night on calculating elapsed time in word problems. A. How did you monitor student learning during the lesson? In what ways did evidence of learning guide your instructional decision making during the lesson? Cite examples from the video to support your analysis. a. To monitor student learning during this lesson I walked around and observed groups as they completed their clock activities. I did this to ensure that the students were getting accurate answers and encourage them to do their best work. I also helped any groups or students who were still struggling with this concept. B. How did your feedback to individuals, small groups, and/or the whole class advance student learning? Cite examples from the video to support your analysis. a. Within the video one student was called on to answer a question, but committed a common mistake of rounding the time to the start time by an hour instead of adding minutes to reach the next whole hour. I reiterated that she was looking for the time between the start time and the next whole hour instead of adding an hour. This helped her understand the concept. Based on the relationship I have with this student I knew that she quickly corrected her thinking and now has a better understanding of elapsed time. C. How did your use of verbal and nonverbal communication techniques foster student learning? Cite examples from the lesson to support your analysis. a. The verbal cue that I gave students was to keep restating the questions in multiple ways to ensure that I was reaching as many students as possible. In the video I ask students the question why is elapsed time important? I also reworded this statement asking How do we use it in our everyday life?, Why do we need to know how to calculate elapsed time? This allows the students to hear the question worded in multiple ways, with one hopefully sparking an idea or connection. b. A non-verbal cue that I gave students was my proximity to the students. If I believed that a student was not focusing I would walk down their row and look or point to their paper to help refocus them. Some students refocused simply by seeing me walk near their desk.

A. What classroom-management strategies did you use during the lesson? Cite examples of the strategies from the video. a. One classroom management strategy that I used within this lesson was to have the students raise their hands to answer questions. We often have lessons where students are allowed to shot out answers, but these can quickly turn into side conversations and off task activities. This concepts is one that many students are struggling with so I wanted to ensure that everyone was on task and focused by keeping the noise level to a minimum. I also paired students up based on who they were seated next to. Their seats have been strategically decided based on behavior and ability to work together. By choosing their partners for them we saved valuable instruction time and the students were able to stay on task better than if they choose their own partners.

B. In what ways did the strategies engage students and promote a positive learning environment? Cite examples from the video to support your analysis. a. Students were engaged when I passed out their partner game to play because I forgot to shuffle the cards and the students were quickly aware of the fact that they had the same start and end time. To help promote a positive learning environment I smiled and explained that this could still be a problem and once they solved the problem I gave them a new card. This proves that this classroom has a rather positive learning environment because they were able to let me know that I made a mistake without the fear of being ridiculed or punished. We understand that mistakes are our biggest way to learn. A. Describe two student work samples that resulted from the lesson. a. One student work sample that resulted from this activity is the students homework worksheet. Another work sample that resulted from this activity is the students notebooks where they completed their work for the game. B. Explain how each work sample you selected demonstrates the learning of each student relative to your lessons goal(s). a. The students homework assignment demonstrates the learning of each student relative to the goal of being able to accurately calculate elapsed time because if students are able to complete this assignment then they understand how to calculate elapsed time. This worksheet is a difficult one since it is in word problem for and requires the students to pick out important information. The students notebooks demonstrates student learning of the goal because they were

working example problems with a partner to help increase their mastery of elapsed time. C. What feedback did you provide to the two students concerning their responses? How did the feedback improve the students understanding of the content being taught? a. Student 1: I gave this student positive feedback for writing their work on a separate sheet of paper and underlining important information within the question. This student was able to accurately measure elapsed time. I conference with the student and she asked that I provide her with more specific problems over a longer period of time to ensure that she understood the topic. b. Student 2: I gave this student constructive feedback because she was forgetting to write out her problems step by step. She was skipping steps and trying to solve for hours and time at the same time. I explained to her why it was important to do these separately. She then corrected her work in her notebook. A. To what extent did the students reach the learning goal(s)? Cite examples from the lesson plan and/or the video that support your conclusions. a. Based on this lesson students were on their way to reaching their learning goal. We will continue to keep working on this topic because fifteen minutes is not enough time to allow the students valuable practice time with me and in partners. I knew that students were on the way to reaching their goal when I walked around the classroom during their partner activity to ensure the students were accurately showing their work.

B. Reflect on your instructional strategies, interactions with students, and classroommanagement strategies. Discuss what went well and what areas you would revise in the future. Cite examples from the video that support your conclusions. a. Instructional strategies: i. Well: In the video at the beginning of the lesson the type of instruction that I used was direct instruction. This allowed me to get the information to the students without a lot of down time. It also made sure that the information was to the point without a lot of extras to confuse the students. Before the lesson students were asked to watch a brainpop video on their own for morning work on elapsed time. This helped refresh or introduce the topic to the students. ii. Revise: To revise the instructional strategies that I used I would again allow for more time. I would ensure that the students have mastered the vocabulary and are fully aware why we need to understand this concept by giving them more time to turn and talk with a partner and more time to participate in whole class discussions.

b. Interactions: i. Well: In the video when students corrected the fact that I gave them the wrong cards I did not get angry or frustrated, but just rolled with it and used it as a teaching point that I had not previously thought of. We also went back after the video and discussed the fact that if it is the same start and end time because it was an analog clock it could mean a 24 elapsed time or a 12. ii. Revise: I would allow the students more time to work in groups so that I could walk around to each group and discuss with them things that they were doing well and things that they could improve on. c. Classroom management: i. Well: Throughout the video you can see that students are raising their hands and waiting to be called on before answering questions. This helped keep the classroom quiet and focused throughout the lesson. ii. Revised: I would have relocated the morning advanced math students to a different section of the room because when they were working on a different assignment it was distracting to other students in the classroom.

C. Describe revisions that you could make if you were to teach the lesson again. Why would you make each revision? Cite examples from the lesson plan, the video, and/or the students' work that would prompt the revisions. a. If I were to teach this lesson again I would make sure it was longer than fifteen minutes. This amount of content needs to be spread out and worked out on a much more detailed basis. I would also give more example problems and give the students time to work independently before moving on to the game review, but for the sake of the video and getting the important information covered it was rushed. I would also be sure to check the cards to ensure that they were mixed up. I would also give each group a stack of 10 cards. I would also label each as a start or end time to help reduce confusion.