Teaching Reflection and Analysis

I calculated the percentage of my various assessments throughout the unit and placed
them in a chart shown below. Some areas I assessed more than once and thus I also looked to see
if they improved between those assessments. The green highlighted boxes indicate that the
students did improve compared to the pre-assessment or the previous assessment during the unit.
The red highlighted boxes indicate that the students did not improve compared to the previous
assessment during the unit. I used percentages since several students did not turn in the
homework and/or were absent during the in-class assessments. I also was not able to include the
final assessment a.k.a. Unit 3 test since my coordinating teacher needed it for report cards. I will
note that the students did not do as well as shown from the assessments I took throughout the
unit. I believe it was the lengthy story problems that hindered the students’ ability to answer the
questions. They are so use to being asked for exactly one thing and have not been taught
strategies to read through word problems. Many of my students are low level readers and even if
I read the problem to them it was difficult for them to understand what the question was asking
them to do.

Graph of Student Improvement

Before After
Lesson Lesson
Hour # 65% 93%
Minute # 18% 93%
Hour Hand 88% 93%
Minute Hand 71% 93%
Hour Hand 2 100%
Minute Hand 2 90%
Place Value 51% 86%
Counting Money 41% 78%
Counting Money 2 72%
Make Exact Change 29% 76%
Make Exact Change 2 79%
Calculate Change 1 68%
Calculate Change 2 92%
Bar Graph 1 56%
Bar Graph 2 93%

An example of a word problem students had trouble with was “You buy a candy bar for
60¢. You put 3 quarters in the vending machine. How much change should you receive?”. Even
my high level readers did not know what the word receive meant. When I discuss change in
class, I always used the words “How much change should you get back?”. In the future I will
make sure the text includes wording that the students are familiar with from the classroom
lessons and discussions.
 By observing the table above you can see that students did better on writing and telling
time than on working with money. I feel that the concept of time is easier than money since its
main obstacle is to skip count by 5s to figure out the minutes and to count by 1s to figure out the
hour. With money there are a variety of quantities in the values of coins (i.e. a quarter is 25 cents
while a dime is 10 cents). If the students were only adding nickels then they can skip count by
5s, but coins of different values (quarters, dimes, and pennies) prevents students from simply
skip counting. With money, students need to add different quantities and with most of the
problems it does not only include 2 numbers either (i.e. how much is 2 dimes, 1 nickel, and 3
pennies?).

By the end of the unit my students learned about place value, time, and money. Some
areas they excelled more than others, but at the end they did improve in most areas of the unit.
There were 2 areas that shown in the table above decreased in percentage. My second assessment
with drawing the minute hand decreased by 3%, but it also included 3 students who struggle in
math. My second assessment for counting money decreased by 8%, but it also included 2
students who struggle in math and excluded 1 high level student who was absent. The
percentages give me a general idea on how the class did as a whole (minus a few students who
were absent). When the percentage is close it can just be due to certain students who were/were
not included. I would use this to see percentages that are greatly different as more of a gauge on
the class’ understanding of the concepts.

The main part of this unit I would change is that when the whole class is working on their
math boxes I would pull certain students who need more assistance on the main concepts of the
unit to work with them in a small group setting. I would continue using various manipulatives in
my lessons since the students were able to grasp the concepts better when they were able to work
with something in 3-dimenional form instead of always 2-dimentional.

I used “thinking through a lesson protocol” on most of my lessons, but of course my

lessons did not occur exactly as planned. It helped me stay organized and on task with what I
was doing with the students. I had to break several lessons into 2 days instead of 1 since the
students did not grasp the concept as easily as I had hoped. I felt confident with teaching all my
math units since I seemed prepared with all the material I needed and knew the flow of what was
going to be taught. My only issue was my group discussion. I changed the discussion to the
students working on 3 money math puzzles that had clues. I was hoping for more of a discussion
between students and more in-depth explanations to the class on how they came up with their
answers. One puzzle had 2 clues with clue number 1 being “you have 46 cents” and clue number
2 being “you have 7 coins.” Many of my students kept complaining that they could not do it and
it was too hard. I gave an extra clue being “do not use quarters” since the majority of the class
had at least 1 quarter in their coin combination and that would prevent them from ever reaching 7
coins. The students were able to come up with 46 cents with less/more than 7 coins and some
took it as they were suppose to make 7 cents instead of using 7 coins. I had to use much further
explanation of the puzzle for the class and finally the students were able to get the answer. I was
very excited, but being 2nd graders they did not have much to say on how they got to their
answer. All the students for all 3 puzzles just said that they just used different coins every time to
see if it would add up to 46 cents. They all used guess and check basically. None of the students
were able to explain a pattern they might of used (i.e. trying all nickels first and all dimes next).
The majority of the students also worked independently even though I instructed them to work in
a group and kept reminding them to talk to one another. If a student found the answer I asked
them to explain it to their group members so they would understand. Most of the students can
make coin combinations, but their main struggle with this task is being limited to how many
coins they could use.