Euniqua Harris

10/8/14
MATE 4001
The classroom is a rectangle shape with one exit door located in the back of the
classroom. Parallel to the door is a wall of windows viewing the bus parking lot. In the
front of the classroom, there is a white board and a smart board covering about half of it.
To the right of the white board is the "teacher corner". This is where the teacher desk is
located and on it is a desk top the school provided. There is also a metal filing cabinet in
her corner and a small bookshelf hanging above her desk. To the left of the white board
there is a rectangular table used to hold tissues, student's finished projects, etc. There is
also a podium in front of the white board that she doesn't teach from and a bar stool
which she also never uses. The student desks are divided into three sections all arranged
in row form (one desk after another). The middle section is directly in the middle of the
classroom and faces the whiteboard. Section 2 faces toward the middle section and lines
the wall in rows of two and section 3 is a mirror image of section 2. Located in the back
of the classroom is a laptop cart full of student Chromebooks, another rectangular table
used for papers/ handouts the teacher needs to distribute to the class, and a door in the
corner that leads to the teacher's office. A picture is shown below.

Euniqua Harris
10/8/14
MATE 4001

The teacher begins the day by having the students complete a bell ringer. She
displays a link on the Smart board and the students go to that link and answer the
questions on their Chromebooks. You can tell the teacher enforced a classroom routine
because as they walked in they grabbed their Chromebooks, logged in, and began
working. The students were able to research the definitions they were unsure of using the
internet as a resource. Then after about 15 20 minutes of the students completing their
warm-up she spends 5 minutes going over the answers in the warm-up then the students
put away their Chromebooks. The students take out their math journals/ notebooks and
proceed to take notes. She displayed her lesson on the smart board. That day she decided
to teach operations with polynomials and have the students explore the multiplying
portion using algebra tiles. She first spent 40 minutes going over definitions and standard
form of a polynomial. The children write very slowly in that class and there were quite a
few terms to go over. Then she took about 2 minutes to explain what the algebra tiles
were and the different areas for the different shapes. After explaining the tiles she had 20

Euniqua Harris
10/8/14
MATE 4001
minutes left for exercises with addition and subtraction using algebra tiles. As students
were working on the exercises the teacher would sometimes stop the class and discuss the
answers on a few of the problems. She used the on screen calculator as a checking tool
for some of the answers because they involved very large numbers. The teacher primarily
operates the smart board and she write over a lot of the slides for added emphases. The
teacher connected the students past mathematical experiences by showing how to
incorporating the keep-change-change rule when subtracting negative numbers and
introducing the additive inverse rule. She also made a point to say that adding and
subtracting variables is almost identical too adding and subtracting whole numbers. The
students understood the difference between adding/ subtracting variables and multiplying
variables after that comment. The students provided evidence of understanding
mathematical content with by showing their work on the algebra tiles and completing the
worksheet provided.
The technology benefited the teacher by having a place to display the information
and also being able to write on the PowerPoint emphasizes the important points for the
students. She also doesnt have to struggle with rewriting the same information and she
can quickly and easily calculate and display information all using the same tool. The
students benefit by being able to clearly read the information presented and the
Chromebooks allow for quick research in class. They also are able to use their calculators
as a quick calculation tool. In my opinion, the technology didnt highlight any concepts
impossible without technology. In fact, her exploration for the children didnt involve
technology, the algebra tiles were cutouts of actual algebra tiles. I would say that the
technology enhanced the mathematical concepts but this also could have been done

Euniqua Harris
10/8/14
MATE 4001
without the technology. In other words, the technology made the content easier to deliver
or teach to the students but it neither made it better or worse. I believe that there are no
modifications to be made to her lesson. I enjoyed listening to her lesson and she connects
students prior knowledge well the lesson being learned. Her only enemy here was the
fact that the students copy the information really slowly. If there was a way to have the
students understand the terms and definitions without taking that much time, I would
advise it. As far as I can see there is no way to alleviate that problem without removing
some of the information. I feel like the lesson would have been a great way for students
to work with manipulatives, make connections, collaborate on those answers, and
develop a technique to multiplying polynomials without using algebra tiles once they
were done with the exploration. Using the algebra tiles was a great visual way for the
students to see why variables cannot be added with constants. This also would have been
a great way for the students to see why the exponents increase when multiplying
variables. Overall, I felt as though her pacing was good and she involved all students of
different learning styles and cogitative levels.