Field experience assignments:

Assignment details:

CGI Word Problem Interview: We will discuss this more in class on Thursday Sept 27, and I will create/provide a sample interview at that time.

You will be designing an interview consisting of some problems (5-6) where the word problem type varies in difficulty.  The interview should include at least 1 word problem that you think all children will be able to answer, and at least 2 word problems that you think will be difficult for some students. 

Your interview plan should include:

• The text of the word problems you are planning to ask.
• The numbers or possible numbers you are planning to use (it's OK to adjust the difficulty of the numbers up or down as the interview goes on to find numbers that are of an appropriate difficulty for the students you are interviewing: not so small that the problems are trivially easy, but not so large that the difficulty of the numbers is more significant than the difficulty of the problem type)
• The recording sheet you're planning to use to take notes on of what questions you asked each child and with what numbers, and what responses you got.
• A commentary on why you chose the problems you decided to include in your interview.  You should address the varying levels of expected difficulty for the various problems. (10 points for the interview plan, including commentary)

The interview itself should be conducted with at least 5 students.  Ideally, you should be interviewing them one at a time, so you can pay attention to individual children's thinking, but you may interview them in small groups if individual interviews are not possible.  You should consult and schedule with your cooperating teacher when it would be least difficult for you to talk to children individually, and you should share your interview plan with your teacher before using it.

Your report should include the details of what questions were easiest and hardest for the children you interviewed, and what sorts of thinking strategies children shared with you for how they solved the problems. You should use pseudonyms for all of the children to preserve anonymity. Your report should be at least 500 words (10 points for the interview report). 

Number sense and strategies interview information

Place value interview information

Context for learning essay: This is a 1-2 page essay reporting on the class you are working with and how the background and conditions affect your plans for teaching and learning.  The essay should include some or all of the following:

• Must include: What is the physical context like?  What learning resources are available? Manipulatives? Books? Computers? Tables vs desks? Where in the classroom would you be in relation to the students if you were lecturing? Where if you wanted a large group discussion? Where if you wanted a small group discussion?
• What are the classroom norms? How does the teacher call for attention and quiet time? Do children raise their hands to be called on to talk, and if not, what other patterns are in place for children to contribute questions and ideas?
• What is the overall community and family background like for children in the class? What sorts of jobs to typical parents have? What sorts of advantages or disadvantages do your students have because of the families and communities they live in?
• What sort of vocabulary do children use in the classroom? Do children typically use correct academic vocabulary? What do you notice about the sentence structures that the children use and hear regularly?
• Are there children with disabilities in the classroom?  How many? What sorts of disabilities? Are there IEP plans that you need to take into account when planning lessons, and if so what accommodations do you need to prepare? Do any of the children have aids that accompany them in the classroom? (Note: always use pseudonyms to preserve the anonymity of students).
• Must include: What math background have you seen in your interviews and observations of students? What skills do they have? What sorts of problems do they struggle with? Discuss both what seems to be typical of the class, and specific students who have special educational needs in the subject area of math (always use pseudonyms when describing individual students).

Co-teach a lesson: You should have at least one experience teaching part of a math lesson to the whole group of students.  You and your cooperating teacher should choose a math lesson where you can teach part of the lesson to the class. 

You will be submitting a report and reflection on the lesson.  Your report should be 1-2 pages and should include:

• A description of what you taught and how you taught it.  How did your part of the lesson fit in with the part that your cooperating teacher taught? What did you do to prepare? (Be detailed--at least 300 words)
• Describe your strengths: what did you do that seemed to work well?
• Analyze student learning: did all of the children understand the lesson? How do you know? (When describing the work or responses of specific children, please use pseudonyms)
• Look for room to grow: if you could teach the same lesson again to the same group of students, what could you do to improve?

Please ask your cooperating teacher to fill out this form and mail or e-mail it to me.

Plan and teach a short lesson that incorporates formative assessment:

My main goal for you in this lesson is to learn to use formative assessment to analyze and plan your lesson. You will need to have the following things:

• A plan for a short lesson you will teach.  Ideally, you should be teaching this lesson 2-3 times to small groups as part of a learning center structure, but it's OK if this is a whole group lesson.
• The lesson must include things that children do (not just things that you show or explain)
• The lesson must provide an opportunity for you to observe children's work, and find places where the lesson is more or less clear. If you are teaching a whole group lesson, you should get help with this: ask your cooperating teacher to look for signs of what children did and didn't understand in the lesson, and share those with you.
• At then end, you should be able to identify things in the lesson that worked well, and things in the lesson that didn't work as well, and you should be able to verbalize ways that you would change the lesson that you think would improve it. 

Suggestions for coming up with a lesson plan idea:

• Piggy back off of a children's book that has math ideas in it that you can explore.  Start by reading the book, discuss the mathematics with the children, and give them a mathematical task that relates to the book.
• Ask your cooperating teacher to help you choose a topic that is important for children to have more practice with or that children find tricky.  If your lesson isn't too easy, you will get better formative assessment data from it.
• Expand on your interview results: what things have the children you interviewed not mastered yet?  How could you help them learn those and move to the next level?

Reflection document:

• This should include a narrative of what happened in the lesson when you taught it (so I can imagine just how your lesson went)
• It must also include an analysis: what went right, and what went wrong.  I'm looking for specifics: what did children do, say or ask that told you that they understood or that they didn't understand.  Identify at least one thing that you could change that you think might improve how these children might understand the content of the lesson.  Explain why you think your change would be an improvment.
  • If you had the opportunity to teach the lesson twice to different small groups, you can answer this by explaining things you changed from one group to the next, and describing what effect your change had on the children's learning.
  • Instead of writing about how you would change this lesson, you could fulfill this requirement by writing about how you would design the next lesson to meet the needs of the children.

Lesson plan type-in document