Teacher Interview

Ms. Jane was planning a math lesson for her third grade class. She knew that she wanted to introduce the lesson using the smartboard as well as use it throughout her lesson. She carefully planned her lesson using the math textbook. She went through the textbook to get a general idea of what the material is about that she will be teaching. This helped her understand where the students should be at the end of her lesson. After reviewing the lesson, she decided that they lesson will take part over two days. She planned to use worksheets during her lesson. Each student would get their own set of worksheets that they will complete over the next couple days. Ms. Jane hopes that the student will understand the order of fractions on the number line. She wants them to be able to place different fractions on the number that are between zero and three. I decided to observe a small group of students that were close to the table I was sitting. This would help me observe them without distracting other students and the teacher. Some of the mathematical and social interactions were that students were constantly calling out the answers. They seemed to be really eager to answer but did not know how to control it. This caused the classroom to be very loud and chatty. If a student got an answer wrong, another student would call out that's wrong which would cause a disruption of the lesson. Some mathematical knowledge that the student demonstrated was that they had to know between what numbers the fractions had to be placed on the number line. If the fraction was 3/4, students were able to notice that the fraction has to be placed between zero and one. When a student got an answer wrong, the other student used that knowledge to find the correct answer. This related to the plan that Mrs. Reil explained prior

to teaching the lesson because she wanted student to be able to place fractions on a number line which students were capable of doing by the end of the lesson. After the math lesson was complete, Ms. Jane had a few ideas to mention about how she thought the lesson went. She noticed that there was a lot of calling out among the students. She has to redirect the attention on herself multiple times. The students were eager to answer the questions but she was only calling on students who were being respectful of others. She thought the lesson would go quicker than it did but it seemed that the student were having more difficulty understanding the concept that she anticipated. Ms. Jane noticed at the end of the lesson which students understood the objective and which students still struggled. When asking Ms. Jane was she would do to continue her lesson, she mentioned that she would have student notice points on the number lines in relationship to the whole number. Interviewing and observing Ms. Jane and her classroom gave me a good sense of planning and reflecting on a lesson.