7.

Planning for Instruction

d. The teacher plans for instruction based on formative and summative assessment data, prior
learner knowledge, and learner interest.

While in the course Theory and Techniques of Instruction in Mathematics, I was able
to plan and teach a lesson at Mercy High School.
My cooperating teacher and I collaborated while
planning the lesson using backward design. I ensured that I was holding the students to a high
standard and constructing the knowledge that the
students would be assessed on by the chapter test.
The students prior knowledge was taken into account when planning the lesson to ensure that the
lesson was building on mastered material.
The lesson I planned and taught was linear
programming. In order to activate the students
prior knowledge, I had the students analyze the
graph of inequalities. In previous lessons, the students had been graphing systems of inequalities
and finding the solution set.
Then I shared a real-world situation with
the students about Sister Joans Sweet Candy
Company. The table below displays the information of the operating hours of the machines. I
then asked the students, If you were CEO of my
company, how would you maximize the profit?
They we used the table to write the equations for
operating hours for each machine. The students
were then able to see the connection between the

real-world situation, the table, and the graph of

the system of
equations.
Then we used
thoughtprovoking
questions during modeling,
and I circulated the room
during guided
practice to ensure understanding and
answer questions. These
Graph of a system of inequalities, the region
instructional
of solutions, and labeled corner points.
choices allowed the students to construct knowledge and
transfer that knowledge to analyze and solve realworld situations involving linear programming.
The lesson also aligned with the assessment at the end of the chapter. The students
were asked to graph and analyze systems of linear
inequalities. The students were also asked to create a table, write the liner inequalities, and maximize the profit given a real world situation.

The table displays the hours available to run the machines at a candy factory. The
inequalities derived from the table match the inequalities displayed on the graph above.
Reflection
After proctoring and reviewing the results of the chapter test with my cooperating teacher, it was realized
that the students did very well on the linear programming portion of the test. Through this experience, I
have learned the importance and effectiveness of aligning instructional decisions, assessments, and grading
practices. I will incorporate this gained knowledge into my teaching pedagogy and carry it into the future.