Monica Gallen
Week 4: October 3, 2017
Location: Mrs. Testas Fourth Grade Classroom
Mode of Thinking: Situational Thinking
PDE Competency: Stage III C.1-Uses effective verbal and non-verbal communication
techniques.
On this day, I taught my first lesson in my placement. I taught the fourth-grade class area
method multiplication and money multiplication. I had a week to plan an engaging lesson for my
students. I used the techniques that Mrs. Testa has been teaching me to follow a typical lesson
for her class. To keep the students engaged, I started by modeling the multiplication technique on
the board. I kept this part of the lesson short, but had enough information for the students to
understand what to do. After modeling the lesson, I had the students complete problems on
white boards and chose some students to solve the problems on the large white board for the
whole class. This kept students engaged and showed their understanding of the lesson so far. The
students then did a self-evaluation of their understanding of the math concept. The students that
understood it stayed at their seats and completed problems from their workbook, but the students
who did not understand as well worked with Mrs. Testa and improve their understanding. The
students remained engaged because they were working on problems alone and with each other.
They also were able to ask me and one another questions about the problems they were
completing.
The lesson ended with the students moving to the front carpet and learning how to
multiply using money. I kept them engaged during this time by randomly asking questions and
having students solve the problems on the board. I also completed a true and false vocabulary
activity with their weekly vocabulary words. I had the students voting for true and false during
the entirety of this activity. I also asked the students to explain their answers and define the
vocabulary words used in the statements.
It was slightly easier to differentiate learning during my lesson on this day. I was
planning the lesson, so I could plan my lesson based on the students in the class instead of just
using instruction from Mrs. Testa. I made sure that my lesson could be used for students at many
different levels and I provided examples for students learning at different paces. My first
examples were easy problems that I walked the students through step-by-step. This gave all of
the students an opportunity to learn the new math technique. Also, once the class slit apart, the
students who needed extra help moved to the front of the room and were given more assistance
on the workbook problems. The other students were able to work at their own pace and solve the
problems in the workbook. I provided assistance to those who needed it, but only when they
asked. Just like in the weeks before, I developed a relationship with my students through
conversation, I was able to sit and have a conversation with many of the students. This helps me
to better understand how the students learn and more about them in general. I also think I
developed more of a teacher-student relationship with the students because I taught a lesson.
This experience changed the way the students saw me in the classroom.
Unfortunately, there was no homework due on this day. I was not given the opportunity
to ask students about their homework because there was no homework completed. I also was not
able to see which students completed their homework and which students forgot or did not do it.
For classroom management, I continued allowing students to share their thoughts and feelings on
problems and how I am teaching. The students also helped me to create multiplication problems
to solve. This week I had to implement some discipline techniques. For this, I talked to students
individually if they were acting out or getting distracted. I did not call students out in front of the
class, but I did let them know if they needed to check their behavior. I think that my lesson went
well and I had a good morning in my placement.
