Mercurio 1

Sarah Mercurio
Professor Macias
LBS400
5 April 2017
Teaching Reflection form

School: Barker Elementary Teaching Date: April 4, 2017 Grade level: 6

1. What did you need to know to teach your lesson?

Students: I needed to know the structure of the classroom. Students were separated

into different table groups. In these groups, the teacher mixed both high and low

students to provide natural support for each other. As the lesson continued I had,

math wizards students that excelled through the lesson move tables to help other

students to understand. I also asked the teacher before the lesson which students had

particular IEPs so I could be prepared to provide my support.

Subject matter: I had to be sure of the formula for various polygons area and be

able to talk about them in an abstract way. This required me to be very careful in my

words and how I posed questions because I was letting student exploration dictate the

pace and tone of the lesson, but I needed my words to guide them in the right direction.

Instructional strategies: I practiced affirmations and open ended questions that

would steer the students in the intended direction I wanted the lesson to go towards. In

the lesson I found that I had to allow the students to follow the wonky paths they chose

no matter my feeling toward them, and almost every student reached the goal unassisted,

from many different intriguing ways.

2. What formative assessment did you use?

 Mercurio 2

I asked students to share various methods in which they achieved their answer. In

this, as a class we discussed the various methods and either supported or contested

them with additional examples.

3. What do you think went well with your lesson?

The best part of my lesson was the opened ended inquiry approach supported by

various types of collaboration and debate to achieve the final answer. Allowing the

students to take the lesson by the reins, including a real life problem to a job they

could have one day empowered them to be the best they could be. Students liked the

idea of having control in the direction the were taking their city, even went as far as

writing rationale to ensure they were making the right political moves and applying

for particular building codes. This unintentional direction the students took my lesson

opened my mind up to the interdisciplinary potential every lesson can have when

students take the rein and expand on their zone of proximal development. If I was to

do this lesson again I would amp it up with an additional rational approach. I would

maybe make student teams to present their ideas including their mathematical

reasoning to a mayor to practice many different aspects of functional education.

4. What would you do differently next time?

If I was to do this lesson again, I would make sure my media was completely

clear and more simple, a lot of little girls tried to copy my drawings down to the last

detail and took a lot of time away from their working time. I would also expand on

this with more difficulty polygons, sixth graders are a little more advanced that this

lesson by nature allows. This lesson was designed to be simple and mimic the
 Mercurio 3

structure of percentages (10x10) so students could derive the formula using various

numeracy skills they have.