Sean Selba

Due Date: 10/28/2014

Validates Practices Project

This semester, I interned at Magnolia Middle School in Harford County. Magnolia is a
very diverse school with parents who unfortunately are not as involved with the school or their
children as they should be. As a result, some of the students come into the classroom with much
more baggage than most teachers are prepared to handle. In addition, on my team in particular,
Magnolia has a large population of students with special needs and IEPs. More specifically we
have a very uneven ratio of students with IEPs and students without in the classroom (i.e we
have more with IEPs).
During my time at Magnolia, I taught two algebra CC classes and two integrated
Geometry classes at the eighth grade level. All of my students were either twelve or thirteen. In
regards to their ability, my two preps contained students that were like night and day. My
Geometry class contained students that were quite literally the most intelligent students in the
school. My CC classes on the other hand were, as most teachers described them, the lowest of
the low. In choosing a class for my VPP though, it was a no brainer for me; I had to choose my
low kids. While my Geometry classes would have shown the most significant growth throughout
three lessons, from what I have experienced in my time there, they would have done so because
they have incredible work ethic and take on the responsibility to learn for themselves.
Unfortunately, that shows less about my ability to instruct and more to their ability to learn.
Instead, I wanted to focus on a group of students that I know would need great lessons
(especially literacy based) in order to succeed. I found these students in my threes.
To be more specific, my threes were a group of students who were the second to lowest
in academic ability and by far my worst behaved class I have ever had. As a whole, this class
kept an average of a C throughout the time I was with them. In reality though, that grade was
beautified because of a few grading policies implemented by my mentor before I arrived. As a
result of students being able to turn in assignments late, get their assignments graded for
completion, and get modified tests and organizers (per their IEPs) there was no logical way for

the students to fail, regardless of ability. In my classroom, frustration often arose from the
inability to read and comprehend the mathematics being assessed. Similar to the other CC class,
the threes had reading scores that were incredibly low, with 79 percent of the class at basic or
below basic reading scores. Worst of all though, even with the little ability they did have, most of
them still chose to not do the work.
In preparing instruction for my class, there were multiple considerations I had to make.
As described above ability, behavior and reading level were the crucial elements to
accommodate when planning for instruction. Thankfully, this year, my class, and another from
Harford County, had the opportunity to pilot a new curriculum built around the new common
core standards. For my class in particular, this meant a new life for dull, lower level material,
tablets that students could use to discover new ideas and especially a new text that is designed
for a low reader. With that said, ensuring that the new curriculum and tools were used effectively
was a simple, yet effective, way to guide my instruction through my three lessons. All of the
resources were there for me, I just had to keep consistency in my day to day procedure. The
tablets, used every 90 minute period, proved to be an excellent way for students to stay engaged,
which resulted in less behavior problems. The new text implemented ideas and activities that
kept the class focused, yet enjoying the lessons I taught. To top it all off, knowing the severity of
their reading scores, I consistently added activities that focused primarily on their vocabulary so
that each lesson I presented was easy to follow.

The three objectives listed below are from three different lessons that I prepared for my class.
For these particular objectives, there are only two common core standards that are addressed.

Lesson 1: Students will be able to analyze and describe patterns for given sequences in order to
find the missing term.
Lesson 2: Students will be able to describe patterns in word problems in order to interpret the
meaning of a sequence or term, according to the problem.
Lesson 3: Students will be able to group graphs based on their appearance in order to describe
those same characteristics using mathematical terminology.

Common Core Standards:

8.F.1: Understand that a function is a rule that assigns to each input exactly one output. The
graph of a function is the set of ordered pairs consisting of an input and the corresponding output
8.F.5: Describe quantitatively the functional relationship between two quantities by analyzing a
graph (e.g., where the function is increasing or decreasing, linear or nonlinear). Sketch a graph
that exhibits the qualitative features of a function that has been described verbally.

The first common core standard that is addressed is 8.F.1. This standard is looking for
students to have a vast understanding of functions in numerous settings. Patterns, which are
analyzed in my first and second lesson, are an excellent introduction to functions because they
represent an idea that has been taught to them since Pre-K. With this background knowledge, I
was able to go more in depth in regards to a patterns sequence and terms. What they were able to
discover was that the set of term numbers (represented by an x-value), and the corresponding
terms represented a function. For my third lesson, common core standards 8.F.1 and 8.F.5 were
addressed in looking at graphs of functions. The connection between the third lesson and those
standards are looking specifically at graphs and deciding, visually, what characteristics the
graphs contain and whether or not they represent functions. Similar to the standards, this unit is
also looking for students to have a vast understanding of how functions look and behave in a
plane. Last unit, we looked specifically at evaluating and graphing functions as an introduction to
what a function is. The hope, through the unit and its standards, is that since students had already
seen multiple examples of real life functions, then the characteristics of graphs they had already
seen should be simple.
In simpler terms, my objectives looked to make sure that students can identify missing
terms in patterns, describe patterns in sequences and word problems and describe characteristics
of graphs based on appearance. With that said, my pre and post assessment aligned perfectly
with what I was trying to accomplish, with a focus on what I found to be most important in
future lessons. For both assessments, numbers one and two were a way for me to assess whether
or not my students could identify and write patterns in sequences. In order to ensure that my
students would succeed in answering a question of this type, I assessed them daily in the drill
with patterns. These types of questions could range from simply what is the next term?, to fill

out the chart with multiple missing terms. In addition, on the first day of instruction, we spent
the majority of our time working with dry erase boards. I put multiple patterns on the board and
within a few minutes, I was able to get immediate feedback for all 19 students. I moved on when
I knew, looking at the whiteboards, that everyone was comfortable with describing patterns and
finding missing terms. I also assigned homework that reviewed vocabulary as well as content.
The third question looked to assess whether or not students could read a word problem,
identify the pattern, find the missing term and interpret the meaning in regards to the problem.
As I have already stated earlier, these particular students struggle in reading, so this problem was
a struggle for all of them. To prepare them for such a rigorous experience, I conditioned them in
reading word problems and picking out important information. We had done a lot of organization
with highlighters and markers in the previous unit, so this was no surprise to them and most did a
great job when it came to using them again. The largest form of assessment that I used during
this lesson was having them create posters that represented word problems. Students worked
with partners to complete these posters, but were individually responsible to complete a chart
representing everyones work during a gallery walk. During this time, students were able to selfassess and put helpful posted noted on their peers posters if they made any mistakes. We
continued word problems all the way until the post test.
The final question on the pre and post assessment looked to assess whether or students
could characterize graphs by appearance. To help assess this concept, I gave them multiple
homework assignments, an exit ticket as well as an organizer where they organized graph cut
outs into vocabulary based categories. For my pre and post assessment, I looked for this question
to be the classs largest improvement as a whole. I knew they met the objective of describing
characteristics of graphs when 100% of the class was able to accurately describe a graph on an
exit ticket.
As a class, my threes scored an average of 22% on their pretest. Even though patterns
and word problems should be second nature and background knowledge from elementary school,
it is very clear that they struggle with that concept. I didnt expect them to have an understanding
of question 4 yet, so it wasnt a surprise that only a single person got a 1 on that section. Most
likely, that was a guess anyway. This data informed my instruction because while I was going to
take 3 days total to cover everything, it ended up taking close to 6 will all the extra material

needed to increase their understanding. In addition, a large amount mistakes on the pretest came
from simply not reading, or not comprehending the directions. To help the students succeed in
this facet of the pretest, I continually asked questions that modeled the test questions so there
were not any surprises.
Lesson 1: 45 minutes
For my first lesson, my objective was for students will be able to analyze and describe patterns
for given sequences in order to find the missing term. As a drill, our special educator, Mrs.
Mayo, created a fill in the blank chart where students were required to use their mathematical
knowledge to find a missing number in a sequence. For most children, I assume because of the
way it was organized, has little trouble completing this task. Once the drill was completed,
homework was checked and all materials were passed out to the students, we had about 25
minutes left in the class period. As odd as they may sound, this was a typical sequence for our
class to take a large portion of the class to prepare and complete the drill. Regardless though, I
was prepared to shorten the lesson a little and make time for more practice in an engaging way.
The first thing I had the class look at was a sheet from their common core textbooks entitled
Problem 1 sequences. This was what I would consider my lecture portion of my lesson. I
first had students volunteer to read important information from the top of the worksheet. This
information was especially important because it was all the vocabulary each student needed for
the lesson that day. After, I had the students look at the four examples of sequences in the book.
Most students were uncomfortable because the patterns werent all just numbers. Some patterns
included letters, symbols, shapes etc. During each of the examples, I followed a set of guided
questions given by the book to help the students see the big picture. Following, there was a set of
questions for the students to answer, asking about particular patterns and terms for different
sequences.
When I realized that there was only about 12 minutes left in class, I quickly moved to passing
out white boards and homework for the evening so that they were prepared to leave when we
finished. For the next 10 minutes, I wrote patterns on the board and had students describe each
pattern and determine a particular term. When we finished, I looked at the homework with them
and did an example problem for them. This homework became a two day assignment to

complete. It covered all vocabulary, patterns in sequences, and finding missing terms. Students
seemed to take my lesson very well in that it was very engaging and made them accountable for
their own learning. Most of them felt amazing because it was the first time all year they were
correct about something.

Lesson 2: 90 minutes
For my second lesson, I once again had a drill prepared, by Mrs. Mayo, which had students fill
out a chart and describing patterns. Today however was a more tedious lesson because of the
level of reading of my students. My objective for this lesson was for students to be able to
describe patterns in word problems in order to interpret the meaning of a sequence or term,
according to the problem. I decided to use the remaining homework problems to introduce
patterns in word problems. I decided that I would read the word problems to start. Similar to an
activity we had done previously for word problems, I asked the students to pull out key words
that may help us to figure out the pattern for each problem. Here is a conversation I had with a
student that models this activity:

Myself: Does anyone see anything in the problem that can help us find the pattern?
Student A: On the first day?
Myself: Yes! But what does that mean?
Student B: Is it the first term?
Myself: Yes! Anything else?
Student C: Each day?
Myself: What do you think that means?
Student B: For each term after?
Myself: Good, so what is the pattern?
Student D: For each new term, you add the old term and 25!

Myself: Nice Job!

Following this example and another, I then assigned partners for a group project that
would ultimately tell me if they understand how to identify patterns in word problems. I set clear
standards and expectations ahead of time to ensure that things would go smoothly during my
lesson. Each group was given a problem from their common core textbook. With their partner,
each student was required to glue the problem to a poster board, solve it, answer the two
questions what is the pattern and is it increasing or decreasing, and draw a picture or
diagram to make the problem more engaging and interesting to look at.
Once they had finished their posters, I had the students tape them to the wall so that we
could do a gallery walk. During the gallery walk, after expectations had been established,
students were asked to read other groups work, critique if needed, and fill out the chart that asked
the two questions what is the pattern and is it increasing or decreasing. If the students
wanted to critique the work of others, I had them put a posted note on the poster instead of
writing on the work itself. This way, the groups who made mistakes can instantly see what they
did wrong.
To complete the class, I assigned a new homework from their workbook, which once
again assessed their ability to manipulate a word problem. I used a problem we did not complete
in class as an exit ticket to close the lesson. Similar to the last lesson, the students took really
well to my lesson and I believe that is a result of another engaging lesson where I did very little
lecturing. Students were again accountable for their own work and also able to see math in a real
world light.
*The next 45 minute lesson was a tablet day

Lesson 3: 135 minutes

For my third and final lesson of this mini SLO, I focused primarily on the literacy based
components of my lesson. Due to the way I graded the pretest, characteristics of graphs played a
large part in the grade (3/6 points). That was intentional because I wanted to prove that even

though my class was filled with numerous IEPs and the majority of the students cant read, that
they are still very capable of learning vocabulary and utilizing it in an effective way. My
objective was for students to be able to group graphs based on their appearance in order to
describe those same characteristics using mathematical terminology.
To start todays lesson, Mrs. Mayo created a drill that looks at patterns as functions. Students
were not only required to graph a particular set of points, but also try to describe the graph in as
many ways as possible. Ironically enough, most of their informal answers were synonyms to the
actual vocabulary.
For my first activity in this lesson, I had students cut out two pages from their common
core textbooks. The two pages contained 12 small graphs that students were then required to cut
out and place on their desks with a bank sheet of printer paper. Once they had done this, they
then folded their paper into four sections. The directions from that point were simple; each
person had 90 seconds to organize the set of 12 graphs into as many categories as they wanted to.
They wrote a description of their first category in the first section of their blank paper. They
continued this process for the remainder of the sections, without repeating categories. After
students had filled their four squares, I went around the room and asked students about the
different categories they came up with. This class in particular came up with three really good
categories.
1. Dots and lines
2. Curves and lines
3. Going up, Going down, both
For most, find the fourth category was tough, so they simply just left it blank. Before I let
them try a particular category, I wanted to reveal the vocab behind the characteristics the found.
The first thing we analyzed was the dots versus lines category. I easily made a comparison
between dots and discrete using the first letter of each word, d. The second comparison,
curves versus lines was even easier in that they already knew that lines meant linear. It took
minimal time for them to realize that the graphs that werent lines were called nonlinear. Finally,
I had the students follow their fingers to discover the final relationship between going up, going

down, and both. I made a very interesting comparison to the way we read, which is left to right.
If we read a book left to right, we also read a graph left to right. Following the graph from left to
right with a finger, if the graph is going up, it is increasing and if it is going down it is
decreasing. Otherwise, it is either both or neither. For their final category, I decided to give them
a vocab word and have them try to organize the graphs accordingly. The word was function.
Now that the class had a pretty good idea of the new vocabulary, I gave them an
organizer where they could sketch out different graphs that represented the different
characteristics. The unique thing about this organizer was that they did not have to copy my
graph, which gave themselves some self-evaluation and examples in their notes that meant
something to them specifically. This organizer was helpful for their homework that was given. It
required them to characterize graphs based on their appearance. An exit ticket was given and
students were required to characterize a graph as linear or nonlinear, increasing decreasing, both
or neither, and discrete or continuous.
The next day, after a very similar drill once again, it was a half-tablet, half-lesson day.
Before students were able to get on their tablets, they were required to fill out another graphic
organizer. This time however, it was a formal version of the same sort they had done before. This
was an activity that helped me to see that they were ready to move on to the next section, or I our
case, give the post test.
A large part of fact that students really understood this lesson was because it was a
literacy based lesson. For a classroom full of students who cant read at grade level, it was
crucial to ensure that they were given every opportunity possible to succeed. By utilizing graphic
organizers for vocab, upside down learning in discovering new vocabulary, creating graphic
organizers based on what they see and practicing/sorting with tangible objects, I was able to see
significant improvement in not only the material, the students confidence as well. With that
said, I do believe that my students took this lesson really well. Their posttest grades also support
this idea.
As a class, my students averaged a 49% increase, going from about 22% on the pretest
(as an average) to about 71% on the posttest. Only four students failed the pretest, with the
majority earning As and Bs. As I predicted, and planned for, my largest increase came from

question four, which was worth 3 points. As stated earlier, I purposefully made this question
worth half the amount of points because I believed that my literacy based lesson would help their
vocabulary and their knowledge of the content.
I believe, based on my data, that my students have met my first and third objective, but
leave something to be desired for my second. I simply do not believe that that particular class can
fully answer a word problem just yet. For some students, like students 5,16 and 19, knowing
those students better than others, I know for a fact that reading and lack of care resulted in their
failure to meet my objectives. If I were to adjust my lessons in any way, I would have also made
my word problem lesson more literacy based so that the students would have had better
strategies in solving those types of problems.
I do believe that my literacy based lesson with graph characteristics was my most
effective strategy in teaching my three lessons. It not only touched on mathematical ideas that
were pretty simple, but they were coming up with the definitions, I was only giving them the
vocab word that went along with it. I do not believe that I would have changed any of my
strategies for the next lesson. Literacy could have been a bit tighter, but overall my ways of
helping students understand at a high level, are very effective.
For future instruction, I know that I will include many more literacy based lessons. More
importantly, I know that throwing in graphic organizers and having students discover vocab on
their own are both valuable strategies to use in ALL future lessons, not just for classes with
special needs and low reading levels.

Sean Selba

VPP Table of Contents

Assessment Data Collection

Narrative

Lexile Scores / Intervention level

Proof of SRI testing

Alignment Table

Pretest

Lesson Plan #1 (with artifacts)

Lesson Plan #2 (with artifacts)

Lesson Plan #3 (With artifacts)

Post test