Questions On Math Lesson Observation - 1580 Words

Math Lesson Observation Introduction Mrs. Goss is a first grade teacher at Riverside Elementary, in Jeffersonville, Indiana. Riverside is a Title 1 school. Her class has eighteen students, ten of which are boys and eight are girls. There are two different ethnicities represented in the class with thirteen students who identify as white and five who identify as African American. In terms of what levels the students are on in mathematics, Mrs. Goss identified her class as being evenly split, as six of the students as below level, six as at level, and six as above level. When my co-teacher, Felicia Lemons and I first met Mrs. Goss and we asked her what were some interesting facts about her students she told us they love read alouds, with Mo†¦show more content†¦Goss wrote the objective â€Å"I can read and write fractions† as well as new vocabulary on the board. The new vocabulary was equal shares, fourths, quarters, halves, one half and one fourth. Mrs. Goss began the lesson by calling the students to the carpet and asking them to bring their white boards, which are about 8  ½ inches by 11 inches, dry erase markers, and erasers with them. To hook the students, she had them visualize a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She then used construction paper cutouts of a square (which was made by my co-teacher and myself for an earlier lesson on two-dimensional shapes and repurposed for this lesson) to represent the sandwich. Next, she drew a line to divide the sandwich in half to share with a student named Nadalie. Mrs. Goss asked if Nadalie would want the smaller side of the sandwich. Nadalie replied that she did not want the sandwich because it was not equal. Next, she taught her students to signs to represent equal and not equal. Equal was represented by placing one arm parallel to the other arm with a gap of a few inches to separate them. Not equal was represented by crossing the arms to create an â€Å"X† with the arms and hands. In her next example, Mrs. Goss then showed the students a construction paper circle, which was to represent a cheese pizza. She divided it vertically into two equal halves to share with her husband, Mr. Goss. Mrs. Goss asked the students if the pizza was equal or not equal and the