Observation of Associate Teacher’s Lesson [2a]

10th May 2023 LF: To look at place value after decimal place

This observation will assist you to identify the elements of an effective learning environment.

Links to prior learning / knowledge: How did the teacher make connections with children’s prior knowledge and understanding and how did the teacher support learners to make connections between their own and each others’.  

Starting the lesson with a recap of previous learning – giving ākonga different numbers on the whiteboard to analyse as a class. e.g. 65423 – what’s the value of “5”, look at the place value columns. Making sure most ākonga are confidently raising their hand to answer questions before introducing the next step.

“Who can tell me anything about a decimal?” all answers encouraged, prompting ākonga to think about the questions from different angles by asking about more than mathematical connection.

Motivational Strategies: How did the teacher engage learners and encourage participation and engagement for diverse learners? What did you notice about the ākonga levels of engagement and participation as a result of these approaches?  

By recapping and revoicing, different students were able to answer. This built up the confidence of struggling learners. If someone gave the wrong answer, they were encouraged and given another chance to try. This appeared to make students feel valued and confident. When they eventually got the right answer, it boosted their confidence even more. This also helped reinforce the learning culture of the classroom where everyone is respected, participation is encouraged and students take responsibility for their own learning with the opportunities offered.

Teaching Strategies: What pedagogical approaches were used? Give detail about how these were implemented. What teaching strategies were used? For example: demonstration, questioning, role play, problem solving, drilling, co-construction, scaffolding, transmission, small group work, independent study, problem solving/inquiry.      

Establishing a supportive learning environment: acknowledging potential difficulty of understanding decimals; assures students that they will work together to overcome this challenge.

Connecting new knowledge to prior learning: relates decimals to fractions that the students have previously learned, helping them make connections and build upon their existing knowledge.

Use of analogies and mnemonics: makes the concept of decimals more memorable by comparing it to the “deep dark side of the number line” where everyone talks like snakes.

Clarifying misconceptions: reiterates decimals should not be confused with commas, helping to dispel any potential confusion.

Recap and summarization

Evaluation and feedback: a thumbs-up system to assess students’ understanding, allowing them to indicate whether they grasp the concept, are somewhat confused, or feel overwhelmed.

Future-oriented instruction: mentions the plans for the next lesson,

• Teacher confirms that understanding decimals can be difficult, but saying that we will work through this together.
• Teacher relates decimals back to fractions that akonga have already learnt (e.g. 0.5 being the same as 1/2)
• Moving decimal place on our example number “what is this number now”
• Asked to write decimal point in middle of page – had to re-explain no “literal” middle of the page, just in the middle of the first line of maths books.
• Call class back to attention as they had been distracted by getting out maths books and the error in drawing a decimal point.
• Reconfirming knowledge about whole number place value naming (Ones, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands), questioning what might we call the names to the right of the decimal point?
• Introduce tenths, hundredths, thousandths. Make it memorable, we’re heading to the deep dark side of the number line where everyone talks like snakes.
• decimals are denoted with lowercase letters
• Relating back to percentage 0.5 = 1/2 = 50%
• Returning to starting number but adding a decimal point – talk about place value with decimals.
• Numberline using decimals is like a mirror
• Reiterate decimal is not to be confused with comma
• Close – importance of placing digits in place value chart correctly. Using zero as placeholder where needed; Congratulate on sharing and listening
• Evaluation – thumbs to indicate good – sort of get it – confused still/my brain is about to explode.
• tomorrow we will go to at in groups.

Reflection: How did the teacher assess learning and evaluate the teaching?

Using a simple method of thumb-direction to establish how ākonga were feeling about what had been taught, and although this is a normal strategy in this classroom, the teacher ensured students knew what they were responding to by reiterating thumbs up: understand; thumbs sideways: could be better; thumbs down: pretty confused. This provided a general idea of what level to start the next lesson at.