Clinical Field Experience C: Mathematics Mini-Lesson

Math Pre-Assessment

Part 1: Pre-Assessment and Implementation

Grade level of mentor class: 4th Grade Standards being taught in mentor class: CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.NBT.B.5 Description of unit being taught in mentor class: It involves multiplication of numbers; the students are learning the multiplication of a whole number of up to 4 digits by a one-digit whole number and two-digit whole numbers through the use of strategies based on place value and the properties of operations.

Pre-assessment Description: 1. Find the product of the following sets of questions a.) 17 x 10 b.) 86 x 10 c.) 10 x70 d.) 80 x 60 2. A teacher wants to buy breakfast for her students. She will buy a packet of milk and 3 packets of biscuits for each student. If there are 20 students in her class, how many packets of milk and biscuits should she buy? 3. If there are 20 cars per yard. How many cars are in 25 yards? 4. If there are 12 packets of biscuits in one box, how many biscuits are in 250 boxes? 5. If one hoverboard cost $250, how much would 100 hoverboards cost? 6. A box contains 200 exercise books and 100 pens; how many books and pens are in 80 such boxes? 7. If one year has 365 days, how many days are there in a century?

Feedback from mentor teacher: the assessment is well structured; it allows the students to slowly build upon their understanding of handling lighter multiplication problems to a more complex one. It is grade appropriate and therefore good for assessment.

Part 2: Reflection

Student assessment is vital to understanding whether the lesson is impactful to them or not. Some of the pre-assessments methods can be oral, written, or through observation. This way, as a teacher, you can understand the specific areas through which you can plan on what is so appropriate for the students. This is because you can identify the strength as well as the weaknesses of the students. Every student has varying academic needs. This means that the way they may perceive one instructional strategy is not the same as how they may perceive another instructional strategy. Therefore aligning these strategies to individualized learning delivery is what every teacher is required to do.

In this preassessment test, I was looking forward to evaluating whether the students had prior knowledge of multiplication and what kind of learning process I could introduce to them. This way also, it was easier for me to plan all the required materials including those that were required for demonstration purposes, for group discussion as well as did away with resources that were not very important to the lesson delivery but still was able to work with the core mathematics standards pertaining this group of students.

After the preassessment, I was able to grade the students, this had effects on the class arrangement I come up with. This was by pairing fast learners with the students with whom English is a second language. Through such sitting arrangements and the distribution of class materials, the learners were able to coexist, socialize, and help each other with the classwork. Without proper planning, the instructions may have been appropriate, but the students may not have been interested, this could pose a very hard hurdle to overcome due to ignoring the very impactful stage of pre-assessment.

This hence forms the basis of my future practice, where I have to first identify the specific student needs through pre-assessment, work out on the data, and therefore make arrangements on how they are to sit in class, collaborate in groups as well as work on individual student work and provide students with specific learning materials.

References

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