Field+Reports

__**Field Reports**__ Dr. Bulgar toc =Field Report 1= February 16, 2011

When I walked into Mrs. Trzako’s classroom the first things that I noticed was the set up of the classroom. I really liked the classroom, and I thought the set up maximized group work and learning. Looking at the classroom, it seems that students are able to move freely from one area to another. I find that the children know the classroom etiquette that is expected, when they are allowed to move they do but they also understand when they are expected to stay seated. When student finish their work, there are plenty of places for students to get comfortable to read a book. The classroom is conducive of independent reading. There are plenty of shelves of books. There is a rug of the states that allows the students to gather on it at different times of the day. Students have to opportunity throughout the day to move from their desks to the rug depending on what lesson is being taught, so they are not confined. There is plenty of room in from of the smart board if children would need to move closer, even if they were being taught at their desks. There are clearly defined areas, such as the shelf for homework, jot notebooks and word study, which have baskets labeled for them. There is a large section for reading and books that students could go up to. There is also a closet for backpacks and lunchboxes that students could reach easily throughout the day if need be. There is a table in the back that allows the students to spread out to smaller groups if needed during a lesson.

There are lots of possibilities for student to interact with the teacher and each other. Because the desks are grouped there is always the opportunity for students to talk and interact with each other. The table in the back allows another spot in addition to the teacher’s desk that conferences could take place. It also allows small groups of children to work together in an open area. The rug that is in from of the smart board that allows all the students to come together for a lesson and share their ideas as a whole and not just with the few sitting in their group. They also allow the student to spread out for group work throughout the day.

The walls in the classroom are filled with posters. I think that this is a great thing to do in classrooms. In the back there is a word wall, for all the new words that the class learns. There is a family tree of the students that has pictures of their families on it. There is an on going experiment of charting the sunset and sunrise. Next to that looks like a group work of a collage of students art work. On the windows, there is a set of rules for the classroom that the students signed, and colored children around it to represent each student. There are math signs hanging up and some reading posters. Over the chalkboard and smart board is the alphabet in cursive. Behind the teachers desk there is helping hands with about fifteen jobs for students to do and are assigned by laminated hands. Above the closet for backpacks is the schedule for each special that day of the week. And by the door there are bus lists for each student.

The design of the classroom shows that the teaching style includes a lot of group work. It also shows that she has a lot of movement for the children. It also gives the students a lot of supported freedom with a large selection of books, labeled bins for homework and the rug that allows free movement for the students. The design of the classroom shows the relationship between the students and the teacher is very strong. There are a lot of student created items hanging up and a lot of student involved charts for example the sunrise/sunset chart and the calendar with student handwriting. The set up also supports a lot of freedom for students as well, including the recycling bin leaving it up the student to recycle, the lunch count menu at the door, putting homework into the correct bins and students writing down their homework in their agenda. All this seems to be independent of the teaching that happens and students must put this into their rountie for the day. The grouping of the desks allows for students to be able to work together on their math problems. It also allows the teacher to assign a problem based learning situation and the children are already put in groups to work. It also allows for materials to be passed out and shared by students. I think that group work is idea for math situations and the fact that students are already grouped is a good idea. You get the opportunity to make the grouping based on the type of learning you want to achieve. You can put advanced learners together or you can chose to keep the apart. I think that this classroom is using all of it potential and is set up that way. Any other way would not be as conducive to learning. The rooms are small as it is and grouping helps to create more room to move around. I also really like that a lot of the storage space is dedicated to books that students can read. It shows students that reading is good and give every opportunity for children to take advantage of it. I am really going to use this classroom as a model for my future classrooms because I feel that it is a really good example to work off of.



=Field Report 2= March 8, 2011 For the math lesson that I observed my teacher was continuing a unit on measurement with her students. This particular lesson in the unit was capacity; they had just finished up length. When I sat down with my teacher she explained to me the goal of the lesson was more understanding and knowledge then mastery of measuring capcity. The idea behind it was students would understand more when to use which measurement then to actually find and read the measurement. It was an important goal of the lesson that students understand that a fluid ounce, cup, gallon, pint, and quart are units used to measure liquid. She wanted to students also to be able to identify the appropriate unit of measure for certain objects. For example students would not use a cup to measure a swimming pool but it would be appropriate to use gallons. This was different from the length unit where the children were expected to accurately measure length. This unit was based more on concept. Mrs. Borup was the teacher who actually taught this lesson to the children, both teachers work together for math and parts of literacy classes. The school uses a specific math curriculum but they are also allowed to substitute other resources from other sources if they feel the need too.

For this particular lesson, the school has purchased a kit that contains household size containers, including a pint, galloon, etc that were clear so the student could clearly see the level of liquid in them. It is mostly household containers that students are familiar seeing in their refrigerator or on a daily basis, so they can associate each measurement with the common container. This lesson was taught to the students on a whole class basis and they were brought to the front of the smart board. They did not need anything, so they could pay attention to the lesson. To open the lesson Mrs. Borup went over the measurements for length that they had already learned and recapped the lesson from yesterday and that it was linear measurements. Then she moved the lesson towards the new part of the unit by asking what could you use to measure liquid. When the students responded with the correct answer of capacity after a few tries she explained the difference between each of the measurements. She then pulled out all the familiar containers for the students and started with the smallest measurement, which is fluid ounce. She poured in one ounce of water to show the students what it looked like and then continued to pour in more until reaching eight ounces, which is equal to one cup. She then asked the students what the looked like that they might get everyday. Several students called out their milk carton, one of those students being in the group that I was looking at. They were a group of friends so they chatted a bit during the lesson but were also paying attention because they were eager to answer questions when they were asked.

From cups, Mrs. Borup moved to a pint, which is the equivalent of two cups. She poured the contents of the cup container into the pint one and then repeated to show the students that they were the same. After this they moved to quarts and did the same technique. She asked the students what they thought that this measurement was called and a girl in my group answered that it was a quart; she was the third student to take a guess at the name of the measurement. Then they guessed how many cups would be in the quart, Mrs. Borup took guesses from each student. My group’s guesses were: 4, 3.5, 5, and 4. Before giving the answer the teacher explained that there were two cups in a pint and two pints in a quart. Then she poured the pint into the quart once, then refilled the pint and poured it in to the quart to fill it. One of the students pointed out that it said how many cups in the quart on the side of the container. In the process of pouring the container of water into the other, she spilt a little and one of the students I was observing, moved herself so she did not get wet if it spilt again. Mrs. Borup also asked what about the word quart sounded familiar to then. She wrote it on the smart board and eventually made the point that quart was like the word quarter meaning one fourth or usually one part of four. She used this to move into the next measurement, which was a gallon because it takes four quarts to make one gallon. She then poured the equivalent amount of quarts into the gallon container like with all the previous measurements.

After all of the measurements were complete, Mrs. Borup asked the students how many gallons are in twelve quarts. She took a few answers from the students; some were correct and some were incorrect. My group had one correct answer and one incorrect from the two students that stated their answer. Because the majority of the class had looked confused to the teachers they decided to break it down for children even if they had come to the correct answer because they wanted the students to understand why the answer was correct. Mrs. Borup drew twelve squares on the board to represent quarts for the children. Then she asked well how many quarts are in a gallon, and before taking answers she redid the demonstration by pour quarts into the gallon container. Since the answer was confirmed that it was four she circled four quarts until all the squares were answered. Then she explained it to the children again. From here class was almost over and the students were told about their homework. They put it on the document camera and did the first one with them. Which was a picture of a clear glass holding water and two options underneath and the students needs to pick the better estimate for the each (one cup or one gal). This went back to what the teacher’s objective for the lesson was, to be able to determine more on understanding what the better unit of measure was to use not to find the correct measurement.

For this lesson children had to pull upon knowledge of their daily lives to be able to answer the questions they were asked. They were using familiar household containers so students could easily equate the measurements. In their homework as well, the types of things they were asked to choose the correct type of measurement to use were items that are commonly seen in their lives. The students liked to add their personal stories about the measurements to the lesson, which I think is good because it adds a connection to the lesson personally for the student to help the concept stick. They also connected to other mathematical knowledge when Mrs. Borup asked them about the word quart. They referenced money and how they know that four quarters makes a dollar. So they took information from fractions, ratios and money, even if they did not realize that was what they were using.

This lesson was an overall success; you could tell the majority of the students really grasped the concept of capacity. Although there were a few moments where the students had showed confusion, they were quickly addressed and the children got the understanding that they needed for the lesson. One thing that Mrs. Trazko did mention she wished she had thought of before it was too late was to use food coloring in the water so that the students could see the water in the containers more easily. Clear water in a clear container is hard to see, especially because the lights were off so the children could see the smart board. They continued this lesson of capacity with making a Mr. Gallon, where students got a hands on activity putting together a man that started with a gallon on the inside. And as they worked their way out the units of measure got smaller but all of the limbs put together were equal to one gallon. This lesson was really effective and introduced the kids to capacity with hands on activities, both with the physical containers and with the Mr. Gallon activity. I think by the end of this part of the unit of measurement the students will really understand capacity.

=Field Report 3=

For this field report I chose to use the Ice Cream problem to assess the students. I specifically chose this problem because it has some opportunities for children to use their own interpretation on the way the problem was worded. For this report I chose to work with a male student as my main observation but I also had three other students working on the problem with me. Two of them were females and one of them was a male. This was a well round group of kids to work with. We sat at the back table in the classroom. However my teachers decided to give the same problem to all of the students to see what they would do to solve the problem and it cause wide spread questions and confusion. This hindered my ability to focus and pay attention to details in my small group because I was interrupted with all the questions. It ended up becoming a more whole class assignment and really defeated my purpose and reduced my time with my small group. I gave the students the problem and explained that I wanted them to look at it and show me how they found how many combinations there were. I told them that it was very important that they showed all of their work, so if someone who never watched them looks at their work they could see how they solved the problem. I also asked them to write on the back how they go to their problem in words. I gave the problem to them exactly how it was written for class. I told them to solve the problem anyway they thought would work for them. I wanted to give them the opportunity to use any tool they know or use a new invented one to solve the problem. I was more concerned with how they would chose to solve the problem then the actual answer in this case. I wanted their actions to spur questions in me that would allow me to understand how they solved the problem.

I watched as the students in the group worked on the problem for about fifteen minutes. I chose to work this on specific male before we started. I observed how he sat and stared at the wall for about five minutes and I needed to ask him questions about what he was doing, even though he was not doing anything in order to get him to work. He then stared at the paper for a while and did nothing. Eventually he started writing on his paper. I watched as he started writing down combinations but in no real pattern. He stopped every few patterns and looked at the other students in his group. Then he crossed out all the work he did and started over. He decided to then make a chart to better organize his work. He started listing again but still had no real organization even though he made a chart. He was still looking at his classmate’s papers to assure himself that he was doing the right thing. After a few minutes I asked him how many he had, since he had stopped working. He told me 29, then I asked him about his representations and what they meant. We went over that and as we crossed over a duplicate I asked if it was the same, he said yes an adjusted his number. This happened a few times until he had a relatively correct number, it was still higher because some duplicates he said were different in his mind. You can see the different numbers that he crossed out on the back of his worksheet. You can also take notice that his explanation was very generic and simply tried to get the work done as fast as possible so he did not have to do it anymore. This does not necessarily reflect his work or his potential more that he is lazy and did not want to do the work.

In this student’s explanation to me while I asked him questions, I could tell he understood but once he was left alone he was completely lost. Without specific instructions on how to find the combinations, you could tell he did not know where to start or how to proceed after starting. He did not have the thinking required to solve the problem, or he knew he was not taught that skill yet and had learned helplessness. I can take from this that he was not ready for this mathematical thinking and that maybe the problem was too hard. It also shows that the student cannot differentiate between the order of the ice cream toppings: caramel and whipped cream is different then whipped cream and caramel. This was the major issue for all the students. They could not determine parameters on the combinations and because of this they say to many combinations and struggled to find an effective way to list or find all of them. I saw this in all the students in my group, but my specific student shows it in his unorganized work, and his two attempts at trying to organize the information. Ultimately I think the problem was too broad for his thinking and needed to be taught combinations first before being able to attempt this problem. He could not use freethinking or pull on previous knowledge to solve it. Although it was clear he was just waiting for the answer, it was also clear he had no idea where to start or how to effective figure out an answer. I was a little disappointed in the lack of creativity that i saw in trying to find the answer. To the students getting the correct answer was more important then the way they found it. This made it hard for me to get to my objective of trying to understand how students go to their answer. It was a great transition into the unit for my teachers though, getting the students to think about combinations and what they think it consists of.

Field Report 3 Lesson Plan __Rational__ Why are you teaching this lesson? I am teaching this lesson to gain insight on the way children think while solving a mathematical task. It is providing an opportunity to think about the mathematics that one particular child has demonstrated during the time spent solving the problem.

__What Standards are you trying to convey?__ Solve problems involving the four operations, and identify and explain patterns in arithmetic. __3.OA.9.__ Identify arithmetic patterns (including patterns in the addition table or multiplication table), and explain them using properties of operations.

__Why is this lesson important?__ This lesson is important because it allows me to understand and take a look at third graders thinking when solving math problems. It is important for the children because it gives them the opportunity to practice their problem solving skills as well.

__How does this lesson fit into the big picture?__ Children need to be able to pull from prior knowledge to solve problems. This is giving children the chance to use everything they have mastered before and reason why they chose it. It gives reinforcement to those methods as well, so when children move on to the next strategy they have a concrete hold on the previous one. What is the source of this lesson? This lesson comes from an activity that Dr. Bulgar used in class.

__Objective__ What is your mathematical goal? Students will be able to pull prior knowledge to solve the problem with different strategies. Students will be able to explain fully how they solved the problem and why. They will be able to convince the teacher that the answer is correct. (Whether or not it is, the more important part is explaining why they got to their answer) Teacher Objective: To focus on the students as a group, and particularly one student and identify their mathematical thinking.

__Lesson Elements__ Introduction: Ask the children who likes ice cream. Then explain to the children that this is something I am doing for school and that has not impact on their grade for Mrs. Trzasko’s class. I let them know that for this particular task it is more important to be able to explain how you reached your answer then the actually for correct answer. For this problem, not for Mrs. Trzasko’s class. We read the problem together, then I let them work alone for a few minutes.

__Closing:__ Wrap up all the ways each student came to their answer. Ask the kids what other types of problems they could use these techniques. Ask any final questions I may need for my interview.

__Procedure:__ Get the students into a group Ask them to take out a pencil Open the activity with the introduction Pass out the worksheet allow them to work for a few mintues and solve the problem in their own ways Spend the bulk of the time on going over the problem and the different ways the children solved it. Ask engaging questions for my field report. Close the lesson after I feel I have enough information in my notes. Collect the papers for artifacts for the report.

__Materials__ Worksheet, pencils, paper and clip board(for my notes), sheet with questions on it to elicit deeper thinking, a small area to work

__Questions you may ask.__ How did you get that answer? Can you convince me that is the correct answer? How do you know there are not more combinations for your ice cream? How else could you have solved this problem? Does anyone else have a different but still correct way of solving the problem? How could you solve it using less work? What stumped you and why? How did you find a way to figure out what stumped you? or How did you go about solving that part?

__Where did you find this lesson?__ This lesson was an example used in Dr. Bulgar’s class. I left it the same because I thought there were many options for solving the problem and I wanted to elicit them from the children. I also wanted to keep the problem simple so that I could focus more on the student responses then trying to teach them how to solve the problem.

__Influence of the lesson.__ The lesson will progress based on the answers the children give me. I plan on only asking questions to elicit answers from the children and to reveal a deeper thinking. I do not plan on “telling” children.

__Misconceptions__ I plan on at least on student leaving out plain as an option. I also plan on students possibly asking can you have all the toppings or can you only use one. The students may ask if you can use both the ice creams together. Most of the questions I expect are about the pairing of the ice cream, and the toppings. __Differentiation__ Read the problem aloud. Allow the children to use any method to solve the problem. Allow the children manipulatives if necessary.

__Assessment__ If students can convince me that their answer is correct. If students try to convince me with the correct answer. If children show their work. If children are active in the conversation about the solution that shows me they understand.

Worksheet Ice Cream Shop

You are in an ice cream store where you make your own ice cream dessert. You can choose from any of the following: § Chocolate Ice Cream § Strawberry Ice Cream § Hot Fudge § Whipped Cream § Caramel How many different ways can you make your ice cream?