Math Interaction Project Reflection Paper

I never thought I would be a math teacher. Ever since math was

introduced at a young age in school, I never saw it as my strong suit. I would

take much longer than my other classmates to understand the information,

and in order to retain it, I had to work much harder than the others. Math

was always something that frustrated me because of the huge amount of

effort it took to grasp it. Working with the 3 students I worked with

throughout these past couple of months has shown me that if an educator

really takes the time to work intensely with a group of struggling students,

she can make a huge difference. My hope through this project is that by

taking time to work with three students, I have made their math experience

a more enjoyable one.

For this Math Interaction project, I chose three students that Mrs. Ward

and I thought varied enough in their math fluency to where I would be able

to see different levels of skills. This provided me a range of skills to work

with, which helped me to see how the same lesson helps different skill levels

of Kindergarteners. The students names were Allison, Hudson and Matthew

and each student had varying levels of math skills based on small

observations of the first couple of days of school. Allison is a reserved girl

who loves attention from adults, especially me. She came to school without

any kind of previous education and had never attended any kind of

preschool. Her parents worked with her at home on her letters and numbers,

and that was evident by her pretest. However, I would not call her advanced
in math by any means. The second student was Hudson, a 5-year-old boy

who also had no previous experience with school before coming to

Kindergarten. He did have a great attitude toward learning though, which

was helpful when it came time for me to work with him. Lastly, I worked with

Matthew, who was the only one of the three who had been to preschool

before coming to Mrs. Wards Kindergarten class. I could tell from the start

that Matthew was intelligent, and was probably chosen for me to work with

because he would be considered advanced. The classroom that we worked in

was my mentors classroom, and the room was filled with the typical posters

and big books that one would expect to see in a Kindergarten class. The

teacher, Mrs. Ward, had a discipline style that could be best described as

organized chaos, which greatly affected the way I was able to implement my

lessons. I told her the table in the room that I wanted to work at, and she

allowed me to pull my groups and work with them at the teachers table. The

table was a kidney shape, which I found helpful when I needed to be observe

all three students working at one time. The classroom atmosphere was

typically loud and almost out of control. Most of the time, my students were

able to focus on my lessons, but at times, the noise level got to the point

where it became a distraction for my three students.

In order to assess the level my students were at before I implemented

my lessons, I used a simple pretest that was premade and given to Mrs. Ward

based on the Kindergarten curriculum. It was simple because it looked only

at their ability to count from one to twenty, which is extremely helpful when I
am analyzing their progress. The students were each called one at a time to

complete their pretest with me at the kidney shaped teacher table. Allison

was first, and she had to have the direction given to her twice before she

understood exactly what I was asking her to do. She completed the pretest

by counting up to the number fifteen. Hudson was next, and he understood

the directions the first time they were given, but had a bit of a harder time

getting through the test. He finished with a score of eleven. Last was

Matthew, who was excited to be able to work with me. He sat down and

began counting before I even told him what he would be doing. I told him to

wait until after I gave him instructions, and then he counted all the way to

twenty. All three students did not seem frustrated or uninterested in the

pretest.

Teaching the lessons went well for the most part, and students seemed

engaged and excited to be working with me. It definitely helped that I was

the interesting new adult in the classroom, so they were more willing to work

with me during my math lessons. All of the lessons were taught to the entire

class and then I broke off with the three students and finished the rest of the

lesson with the three of them so I could work with them closely. The lesson I

believe they found most interesting out of all lessons was the first lesson,

where they worked with buttons and learning the concept of relative position.

Allison loved this lesson because she got to use colorful buttons to rearrange

and count, and Hudson liked it most when I allowed him to used bear

counters rather than only buttons. I allowed Hudson to use the bear rather
than the buttons because that was what interested him more. Which counter

he used did not affect his learning, so that adaptation was a simple one that

encouraged engagement. The second lesson taught was effective and

interesting to the students because it included their fellow classmates.

Students who I chose were called to line up, and the class counted them.

They were told to rearrange themselves, and the students then had to tell us

if there were still the same amount of friends standing up. It took a while for

the students to understand, so I chose to change the lesson slightly by

starting with two students instead of six. Once I changed the number of

students, both Allison and Matthew understood what I was teaching. All three

students did a great job of working with me and asking me questions when

they were confused. During this lesson, I could tell that all three students

trusted me and were willing to give me the best they had. The third lesson I

taught was all about grouping multiple different kinds of objects into

specified groups based on a given number. Matthew enjoyed this activity the

most, because I allowed him to group objects he already had, which were his

pencils out of his pencil box. I found that after this lesson, he told me

groupings of different objects we saw around the classroom. This is how I

knew for sure he grasped the point of this lesson. Lastly, I taught the fourth

lesson about using rhythms and rhymes to help remember how to write the

letters, as well as using them while counting physical objects. This was

Hudsons favorite activity, and afterwards he came up to me and sang the

they rhyme for the number eight. This lesson was fun for the students and I
because we got to get up and use our pointer fingers and dance around

while learning helpful songs.

According to the post tests that I administered, all three of my students

I worked with met the objectives and improved their counting abilities. The

post test I used was the exact same test given as the pretest. Because I had

already worked with them extensively, the students asked when I would have

to leave and stop working with them. They seemed sad when I told them I

would only be doing four lessons with them. Matthew was glad to take the

post test, and like I predicted, he flew through counting one-twenty with

ease. When I asked him if he was proud of himself and his work with me, he

told me yes, very proud.. Next I tested Allison, who had far less hesitation

than when she took the pretest. She took less time to complete the post test

than she did to take the pre test. Overall, she did very well and improved in

her number recognition and counting speed through working with me. Lastly,

I gave the post test to Matthew. He was neither excited or nervous and

completed the post test with ease and speed. I was proud to see that even

though he counted to the same number as he did during the pre test, the
speed in which he did it was much faster.

Comparison of Pre-Test and Post-Test

Matthew

Hudson

Allison

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Pre Test Post Test # of Sessions

This project was incredible to say the least. As someone who does not

enjoy math because I dont feel confident while I am doing it, it was amazing

to see how I could impact the confidence of my students just by encouraging

them. There were times when the three students felt discouraged, and it

amazed me how easily encouraging them came to me. It showed me that if I

can put myself in my students shoes, I am a better teacher overall because I

understand what they are feeling. I knew how to support them because I

knew how it felt to be unsupported in math in the past. I could improve

myself by being more prepared before each lesson, and not assuming that

students will learn one way or another. I found that adaptation in the

moment simple changes helped me to work through my lessons with the

students when there were small problems. Overall, I am incredibly proud of

my work during this project, and the lessons I have learned through it will

continue to help me become a successful math educator.

Picture of Tutoring Session:
Pretests and Posttests:
Lesson Plans: