Video #4: Lesson on Variables

Purpose for the Activity

The purpose of these videos is for education students to be able to see how an experienced math teacher would go about teaching a math lesson in the fourth grade. There are other videos that one can access through the website and the goal of these videos is for students to see the variation in instructional strategies and content across the grade levels. The teacher in the film used many helpful strategies that are worth emulating. I quickly notices the progression of the lesson and ways she allowed the students to practice with the material and experiment and reason through problems as well as the very thought provoking questions that she asked the students.
The students in the film were working on learning variables, in compliance with the state standards and NCTM guidelines. In a group with her peers the teacher addressed the issue that the students were familiar with using letters and symbols to represent numbers but were struggling to understand the concept of variables. The teacher knew this information because she is very cognoscente of her students abilities and their prior knowledge, this is a key element of the lesson and frequently becomes apparent as you see her ask different questions of different students and the degree to which she probes students to elicit a desired response. For some students this lesson is very challenging and when they are on the right track she offers praise. For the more advanced students she requires that they explain their answer more fully and even worded her questions in such a way that it made the students explain the reasoning and steps in their thought process.
I think it was really interesting to see the degree in which the teacher was able to connect the mathematic content with other subject matters. Obviously, the lesson involved a lot of letters and words, as that was the basis of the variable machine. However, she was also able to incorporate vocabulary when she asked the students about their prior knowledge with the word ‘variable’. She connected their prior knowledge with their social studies project, studying the weather in Belize and Guyana. Both cities have very constant temperatures which she contrasted with the variable weather in their home town. The teacher also made connections between student’s names and made the class pet part of the lesson. I really commend the way that she made this material attainable for the students by using so many elements that they were comfortable with.



Questions:

#1 Describe the primary task in this lesson and identify the mathematical skills and concepts that this task is designed to develop.

This lesson was about variables. The students needed to learn the vocabulary word itself as well as understand what a variable is, how it can be altered and how altering the value of the variable can affect the outcome of the problem. In order to teach the lesson the teacher had the students make a “variable machine” which could be used to assign the twenty six letters in the alphabet different variables. Initially the teacher provided examples and then allowed the students to use their own names to practice the concept. By the end of the lesson the students were assigned the word “bear” and attempted to find the lowest and highest possible score for the word. The students were really required to use a lot of trial and error initially but as the lesson progressed they began to recognize the patterns that arose when working with the variable machine.


#2 Identify an example of when the teacher responds to students by offering clarification, by explaining, by questioning, and by letting the student struggle.

At one point in the lesson all of the groups but one had identified the lowest possible score for the word ‘bear.” Instead of allowing the group to move on or allowing them to struggle and potentially become frustrated, a problem that may be been exacerbated by the presence of the cameras and newcomers in the classroom, the teacher asked a group who had gotten the answer to give some strategies to the group that was having trouble. This was a way of asking the groups to explain how they reached their answer that also is part of her classroom climate, an environment where the students help each other.

#3 Describe the student-teacher interactions during the task debriefing discussions and assess the effectiveness of these interactions.

An aspect of teaching that I have really come to value is the debriefing part of a lesson. Many teachers overlook this essential component of teaching. The teacher wrapped up the lesson by drawing attention to the main goals she wanted to accomplish. She wanted the students to have a firm grasp of the word ‘variable,’ she wanted them to recognize that the value of a variable can change, she wanted them to understand that changing the value of the variable effect the outcome and she wanted them to realize the patterns that arose when working with the variable machine. The teacher accomplished these objectives by asking very strategic questions. She asked the students to explain what a variable was and asked them would happen if you changed the value of the letter in a word. As a teacher she was able to informally assess if they understood the content and she boosted the student’s confidence in the material. One of the things she mentioned in her conversation with her fellow teachers was that some of the students needed to feel successful with the material, they needed the positive feedback and sense of accomplishment, likely because they had previously had negative experience with math and their lack of confidence was affecting their ability to absorb new information.

Overall Impression

Overall, I feel that the video was a very useful tool. However, having just studied the equity principal I was very aware of some of the teaching and conversational phrases that the teacher used in her instruction. When she used phrases like “big ticket item” and “hike your score” I was struck by the face that many ELL students, as well as some English speaking students may not be aware of the meaning of these particular phrases. Furthermore, when she asked students to contribute their ideas she would indicate that she wanted them to answer by saying “speak.” Personally, this is something I would not do, I found it disrespectful. Also her primary mode of instruction was verbal. In an attempt to reach visual learners, I might have also written or drawn more of the examples on the white board. However, I do feel that the teacher from the films was a very experienced mathematics teacher and her strategies and skills are defiantly something I would use in the classroom.