After my less than successful math lesson yesterday, I needed to do some reteaching today. The lesson we did yesterday was about how to breakdown a difficult multiplication problem into to easier problems (the distributive property). I had gotten flustered and confused the students about how to break down the number. Since many of them were already confused, by then end of yesterday everyone was very lost.
I started our session today with a new approach to the same material. Diane showed me yesterday how to access some curriculum materials online that she has found really helpful in the past to fill in gaps for the Investigations curriculum. On that site I found a slide show that walks through how to breakdown the problem, but the site uses pictures of arrays to illustrate what is happening. To be honest, after I saw previewed this material last night, the concept became significantly clearer to me. I believe it really helped the students understand what was happening when we break down a number and why the process works. Additionally, I was able to better illustrate why students should even bother learning this process, and I was able to make connections to algebra.
At the end of our session today about 80% of the kids said they understood the concept and were comfortable trying it in their homework tonight. While that's not everyone, it's much better than yesterday and Diane told me that this concept is really complex for these kids and very new. During work time, Diane was able to pull small groups of those still struggling while I helped the others.
I felt MUCH better about our lesson today, and more confident about tomorrow.
I knew the outcome of yesterday's "oops" moment would be positive. Thanks for all the detail about what you were teaching, why it was challenging, and how you studied to get your head around a new way to teach. Using arrays is often a wonderful tool for helping kids see the visual behind the algorithm; the fact that you were able to also show kids why learning about the distributive property was worth knowing makes your lesson even more successful.
ReplyDeleteYour upbeat tone was evident in the way you wrote today's post--I'm happy for you! Carry on :-)