I see many connections between the readings in the Cognitively Guided Instruction book and the math used in my field placement. The field placement that I am is in a first grade class and I observe math every day that I go in. Math is a huge part of the curriculum in my school because the school that I am in, Colt Elementary is an early education program. The school is kindergarten through first grade. The readings (chapter 4) talked about using counters, or other tangible objects in order to solve multiplication and division problems. The students in my class are mostly working on addition and subtraction programs, but sometimes multiplication or division problems are thrown into their math worksheets. They are used to using their counters and solving problems using this type of manipulative. I feel this is very useful because the students are actually seeing what is happening with the numbers. My class is also starting to use grouping my tens. In chapter 6 they were using larger numbers in their examples than we use in our classroom. For example, an example in chapter 6, page 78 is: “The school bought 6 boxes of markers. There are 24 markers in each box. How many makers are there all together?” Most of the students in my placement do not have enough knowledge to solve a problem like this. They need more work on grouping with groups of tens. Last semester in my placement, students were just starting to use the tens-frame to look at numbers 1-10. This week, they are starting to use two tens-frames to look at numbers 1-20. Some students are struggling with the concept that if one of the tens-frames is completely full, that means that there are ten counters in the spots. Some students still count each individual spot in both frames, instead of counting on from ten and then moving to the second tens-frame. I do feel like most of the students in my placement have basic addition and subtraction problems down, and I’m curious to see how the students do when we move to multiplication and division problems.
I am in a kindergarten classroom and I see math taught the most out of any subject. The classroom is a great environment for teaching and learning math. Numbers can be found all around the classroom through posters, books, calendars, name tags, and math material. The most popular way that math is taught is through centers. There are usually about four centers within the classroom. Sometimes the centers stay the same and other times they are changing. This semester, the children are building off of their knowledge they learned about the numbers 1-10 and are now adding the numbers 11-20. They work on writing the numbers, putting the numbers in sequential order, and representing what the number is through objects. They are not at the stage yet where they are adding or subtracting. I have had the opportunity to assess children in their math abilities for their report cards recently. I had to see how high they could count, if they could put the numbers 1-10, 11-20, and 21-30 in order. Also I asked them if they knew how to count by tens and by fives. It was interesting to see the different levels that children in the class are at. There were many children that could count really high, even some to one hundred but had difficulty putting the numbers 11-20 or 21-30 in order. It shows that knowing your numbers goes farther than just being able to verbally count. I also found it really interesting that many students could count by tens but only if they sang the numbers in a song. When I asked many of them if they could count by tens, a majority of them said no. When I started it for them by saying 10, 20…they were able to keep going with the numbers by ten all the way up to one hundred by singing them in a song. Songs can be very useful to teach material but it is important to make sure the children understand what they are singing about. There were only about two children that knew how to count by fives. It was fun being able to assess the children on their math skills. I look forward to teaching them a math lesson of my own.
ReplyDeleteI am in a second grade classroom and never get to see the instruction of mathematics. This is because the students learn math in chinese, I have gone over and observed the Chinese teacher teach the students math, however it is completely in chinese. (she even has the numbers written out in Chinese). I found this to be frustrating because I am not able to get the whole experience of observing math, but it is very interesting to see the students respond and ask questions in Chinese. I find it rewarding for both the students and the teacher, in the aspect that they are both able to learn from one each other. From what I have heard however, the students are focusing on addition and subtraction. I agree with the idea that students may not be able to relate to the given problem, if the students are not exposed to a given item in the problem they may be more fixated on what that item is. When students become more connected to the problem, the more likely they would be to accurately answer the problem. I plan to use a problem that my students can relate to when doing the seeing student thinking exercise. Overall, I look forward to hearing about my group mates mathematic experience and I hope that I will be able to see more in my classroom.
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