Reflection – How to meet the learning needs of a student who

claims, ‘I haven’t been taught about this.’?

In a Year 8 Maths class of my last teaching practicum, there was a lesson in which students needed to
learn how to calculate the volume of prisms and cylinders. In the lesson, a student (under the alias of
Alice) claimed that she hadn’t been taught about the volume calculation, while struggling with finding
out the volume of a triangular prism. It was a bit frustrating, since I did explain the calculation of the
volume at the beginning of the lesson and thought most of the students would be ready for doing
relevant exercises. However, the case is a good chance for me to explore what kinds of gap there are
in student learning and reflect on my teaching strategies in supporting the students. The reflect will
be divided in three parts: questions, answers and a conclusion. It will focus on student learning style,
differentiation, student prior knowledge, student learning goals, lesson planning, pedagogy, hands-on
activities, inquiry-based learning and student feedback.

The case has raised questions:

1. What was Alice’s characteristics in learning?
 How should I develop teaching strategies according to her characteristics?
2. What was Alice’s and the other students’ prior knowledge for the lesson?
3. What were my goals for the lesson? What should be the goals?
4. What kinds of gap were there for Alice and the other students in terms of learning for the
lesson?
5. How should I prepare my teaching to fill in the gap of student learning? Is there a ‘new’ way
of teaching?
6. How did the students feel about their learning?
 Did the students feel their learning was meaningful?
 Did the students feel that I have high expectations for them?
 Were the students at the centre of their learning?

Answers to the questions:

1.What was Alice’s characteristics in learning? What would be the responding teaching strategies?

Based on the pre-assessment I conducted with the students, I could see that Alice’s numeracy level
was above the average in the class. Her mother tutored her Maths at home and had high expectations
on her. She was very confident in her Maths learning most of time. She has an outspoken personality
and often spoke straightforwardly and loudly about whatever she thought, no matter it was about the
answer of a question, or how she felt about learning and teaching.

She was often impatient in doing things consistently in class. Her attention was easily distracted during
learning. When she found that she could not get enough support for the learning, she usually did not
make much effort to look for resources; instead she would often complain about it straightforwardly.

In terms of Alice’s learning, I need to develop some teaching strategies specifically responding to her
learning. These strategies may suit other students at similar situations.

 Give clear instructions and make sure that students’ attention gets less distracted when I
explain contents that is important.
 Break learning process into smaller sessions and add more activities so that students’
patience does not wear thin.
  Provide adequate reading and video materials for students to reference from.
 Constantly evaluate students’ prior knowledge, to make sure they are prepared to get to the
next stage of learning something new.
 Carry out more inquiry-based learning so that students would get used to start working with
curiosity and without knowing exactly how to solve a problem.
 Find appropriate materials to share with students about learning, so that they would
understand learning is constantly accompanied with struggles and questions.
 While planning a lesson, prepare plenty of resources and solutions to respond, in case
students are struggling in learning and applying new knowledge and skills.

2.What was Alice’s and the other students’ prior knowledge for the lesson?

Before the lesson started, the students should have known how to calculate the areas of a triangle, a
rectangle, and a circle, as their prior knowledge. Alice had mastered the relevant prior knowledge,
however, some students had not. I should have assessed each student’s prior knowledge by the end
of the last lesson.

Lesson planning is continuous. Every lesson should be prepared for the assessment of the prior
knowledge of the following lesson. The assessment for the prior knowledge should be used as an
indicator for the differentiation strategy of the next lesson. I could complete this through use of a
Google Form, red, yellow or green ‘lights’ on their tables, or having conversations with the students
about the content I will teach. I could then analyse this data to inform my lesson planning.

3.What should be my goals for the lesson?

My goals for the lesson should include:

 Every student needs to understand that the volume of a prism or a cylinder is the area of the
base times the height.
 Some students could work out the volume of a triangular prism, some could work out the
volume of a rectangular prism, some could workout the volume of a cylinder, some could
work out all of them.
 Some students could work out the volume of a prism which has an irregular shape of base.
 Most importantly, every student should be able to feel that the learning of the volume is
meaningful, and it is related to some aspects of their life, the society and the world.
If the students find out that the learning of the volume is full of meaning, and they as learners play an
active role in the process of research and exploration, they may become more patient before the
solution is discovered and enjoy the learning more. For example, the learning can start with exploring
how to calculate the volume of water in a swimming pool, part of some cardboard architectural
models they have designed and worked on for a long time.

4. What kinds of gap were there for Alice and the other students in terms of learning for the
lesson?

 Most of the students were familiar with how to calculate the area of a 2-dimensional shape,
such a circle, triangle or rectangle, however, when it comes to the volume, it needs the
students’ visual understanding of 3-dimensional shapes.
 The height of a prism or a cylinder may be confused with the height of a triangle.
 What do the letters in an equation stand for?
 The unit for area is different from and easily get confused with the unit for volume.
 Some of the students may not fully understand the practical meaning of calculating the
volume.

5. How should I prepare my teaching to fill in the gap of student learning? Is there a ‘new’ way of
teaching?

When I taught the lesson, the way how I taught was ‘traditional’. The teaching followed the pattern
of ‘teacher explaining — students learning — students practice exercise’. I wrote on the white board
the equations for prisms and cylinder; I explained the equations; students watched and learned;
students practiced excises.

I spoke with my mentor teacher and colleagues about my teaching practice and developed the
following list of what I would teach differently next time.

If I have a chance to teach the same lesson again, I would teach differently (see dot points).

 I would provide an opportunity for the students to explore a few questions, such as, ‘What is
different between an area and a volume?’, ‘What is the unit for measuring an area and that
for a volume?’, ‘Where do you think calculating a volume can be used in any industry?’
 I would provide materials, such as glue, scissors, rulers and paper, for the students to make
3-dimentional paper models of prisms and cylinders, and ask them to label the models with
the key factors of the volume equations, such as base, height of a triangle, area of the base
of a prism or a cylinder, height of a prism or a cylinder.
 I would provide examples for the students to learn how to draw a 3-dimentional shape on a
2-dimentional surface.
 I would provide containers in shapes of prisms and cylinders for them to compare which one
contains the most and the least water.
 I would organise the students in groups so that they could work cooperatively.
  I would provide task sheets to the students so that they could refer to the task sheets to
understand exactly what to do for each step.
 Before teaching, I would pretend that I am one of the students who have very limited prior
knowledge and skills, and do every step required on the task sheet, to find out whatever
may hinder me from completing the task smoothly and gather resources and materials for
every student to reference from.
 I would divide the lesson into different sessions and give myself chances at the end of each
session to answer my own questions to make sure the students have achieved certain goals
in the session. For example, the questions may be: ‘How many students have understood
what the base area/ height of a prism/cylinder is?’, or ‘How many students have understood
that the volume is measured through units such cubic metre or cubic centre centimetre?’.
 I would constantly ask myself, ‘What is the evidence that the students have achieved the
learning goals?’, ‘What would be my Plan B if all or some of the students have not achieved
the expected goals?’.

6. How did the students feel about their learning?

Students should feel that they are actively involved in constructing their understanding, their learning
is full of meaning in a broad social context, they have choices and freedom in their learning, their voice
about learning is heard and cared about, they are expected to learn, and supported in making efforts
and learning from mistakes. If a teacher spends too much time explaining Maths theories, students
might get bored and distracted, and they don’t find they are at the centre of the learning. However,
when there are too many hands-on activities and task-centred learning, the risk is that the teacher
might lose control over student learning and doubt whether the students are on the right track. A
teacher needs to make adequate preparation for the students’ inquiry-based learning, make sure that
there are certain goals achieved at each step and the achievement is proved by solid evidence. The
evaluation of learning should be a combination of teacher’s assessment on how the learning goals
have been achieved and how students evaluate their learning experience.

To learn from student is an important part in improving a teacher’s teaching. In the teaching practicum,
I have asked students to provide general feedback about my teaching, and feedback about what they
have learned in some specific lessons. These were very useful for the reflection on my teaching. I will
keep using student feedback to improve my teaching in the future, and the feedback will focus more
specifically on the effectiveness of certain planned activities on learning. The learning activity and
some pedagogy that has been evaluated as positive by students will be analysed for a better
understanding why the students feel they are engaged, and why they feel they have learned
something. The activity and pedagogy will be repeated, regenerated, and remain in my teaching.

Conclusion
In the reflection, I have discussed how to prepare teaching to support students in filling in the learning
gap between their prior knowledge and new understanding. I have found that a teacher needs to:
know students’ learning style well and teach according to each student’s prior knowledge and
characteristics; constantly evaluate student learning and find out whether the learning goals have
achieved at each stage; prepare different teaching plans in case the learning goals at a certain stage
are not achieved; provide adequate resources and materials for the students to reference from;
organise hands-on activities and inquiry-based learning so that students are engaged and active at the
centre of learning; become expert in learning and share with students so that they could understand
how to learn best; constantly collect feedback from students to improve the teacher’s pedagogy.
The reflection started because Alice’s random complaining about she didn’t feel being supported in
completing an exercise about volume calculation. Too much negative feedback from students could
affect a teacher’s self-confidence in teaching. However, a thorough reflection on learning and teaching
could help a teacher to see a big picture of what is going on in a classroom, get a better understanding
about the answer of some essential questions, know where the problems are and how to improve
teaching to better support student learning, and eventually regain the self-confidence in teaching.