Standard(s) Addressed: 1. Knowledge of Subject Matter 2. Knowledge of Human Development & Learning 3. Adapting Instruction for Individual Needs 4. Multiple Instructional Strategies 5. Classroom Management & Motivation Skills 6. Communication Skills 7. Instructional Planning Skills 8. Assessment of Student Learning 9. Professional Commitment & Responsibility
On Monday I had one of my formal observations during a geometry lesson. Students have been learning how to describe and sort two dimensional shapes. Monday's lesson objective was for students to be able to join shapes together. At the end of my lesson I had students make a tessellation. I explained what a tessellation was and asked students if they had any tiles in their homes that had any repeating patterns. Many students were able to connect with this, and I think that it created more buy-in with my lesson.
With my understanding of the stages of human development, I know that most 6 year olds just do not have the fine motor skills to hold a small pattern block in place with one hand and trace around it with the other, so I did not expect any kind of perfect tessellation to come from this lesson. What I felt was most important was to give students the opportunity to handle the shapes and play with joining them in different ways. I think that using more inquiry based lessons helps students learn more on their own rather than relying on a teacher spoon-feeding them the information.
As the students worked with the blocks I walked around the room to help hold blocks for students or to talk to them about their patterns. I was pleasantly surprised at how many students quickly caught on to the concept of flipping and turning their pattern block to create the next row of their tessellation. Also I was happy at how the majority of students persevered in doing their tessellation. It may not have been perfect, but they kept trying and filled their paper with patterns. This may have been what made me the happiest, so many kids come up to me on a daily basis frustrated and ready to quit on a task. If the answer doesn't come to them easily within a few seconds, they want me to solve the problem for them. For this reason it's important to me to provide authentic tasks that push students to be more confident problem-solvers.
These are two examples of tessellations created by students who are very confident in math and who had greater success holding a shape, tracing around it, flipping and turning it.
On Monday I had one of my formal observations during a geometry lesson. Students have been learning how to describe and sort two dimensional shapes. Monday's lesson objective was for students to be able to join shapes together. At the end of my lesson I had students make a tessellation. I explained what a tessellation was and asked students if they had any tiles in their homes that had any repeating patterns. Many students were able to connect with this, and I think that it created more buy-in with my lesson.
With my understanding of the stages of human development, I know that most 6 year olds just do not have the fine motor skills to hold a small pattern block in place with one hand and trace around it with the other, so I did not expect any kind of perfect tessellation to come from this lesson. What I felt was most important was to give students the opportunity to handle the shapes and play with joining them in different ways. I think that using more inquiry based lessons helps students learn more on their own rather than relying on a teacher spoon-feeding them the information.
As the students worked with the blocks I walked around the room to help hold blocks for students or to talk to them about their patterns. I was pleasantly surprised at how many students quickly caught on to the concept of flipping and turning their pattern block to create the next row of their tessellation. Also I was happy at how the majority of students persevered in doing their tessellation. It may not have been perfect, but they kept trying and filled their paper with patterns. This may have been what made me the happiest, so many kids come up to me on a daily basis frustrated and ready to quit on a task. If the answer doesn't come to them easily within a few seconds, they want me to solve the problem for them. For this reason it's important to me to provide authentic tasks that push students to be more confident problem-solvers.
These are two examples of tessellations created by students who are very confident in math and who had greater success holding a shape, tracing around it, flipping and turning it.
These examples were created by students who experienced difficulty with the tessellations. For these students I focused on discussing how to flip and turn the shapes. They had some understanding of the importance of trying to line up the edges and create straight rows. They would benefit from having more practice, and I feel they will be even more successful as they gain exposure to working with 2D shapes.
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