Michaela Callahan

Rosmarie Michaels

EDU 4145

14 October 2019
Teaching math is something that I have always been afraid of for when I become a

teacher. I have never been good at math, and honestly, it is the only subject that I have had to go

to tutoring for. Since the fifth grade, learning long division, I have been in math tutoring.When I

watched Leslie Smith give the students their math lesson on area, all of my anxieties went away.

She gave the lesson so seamlessly and in turn, it went over amazingly well in my opinion. I

learned so many things: from the way that she delivered the lesson, to how she handled students

in various ways. Overall, I feel as though Leslie Smith did a phenomenal job giving the lesson,

as she really incorporated the lesson standards, actively worked to keep all of the students

engaged at all times, and assessed students as she went to ensure that they learned the lesson to

the best of their ability.

Lesson standards are one of the most important aspects of a lesson. If the students are not

learning the standards, then at the end of the year when it is time to move on, students who do

not understand the standards for their grade level may not move on. Two of the math standards

that Leslie Smith used for her third grade class, were standards one and four. Standard one for

third grade math is making sense of problems and persevere in solving them. Leslie incorporated

this standard into her lesson by first reminding students what it means to find area and why it

matters. When she asked the students why it matters to them, they don't really understand. I liked

that she asked them this, because it really solidified the idea of doing something because it

matters. Once they had an idea of what they would be working on and why it is important, they

were better able to understand and make sense of what was being asked of them. Furthermore,

the other third grade math standard that Leslie incorporated into her lesson, was standard four -
modeling with math. The whole idea of the lesson was to model the area of a specific problem

that was given to the groups of students. The students often got frustrated with one another, but

most of them ended up figuring it out and finishing the lesson. There was one table group who

could not pull it together enough to finish out the lesson. Leslie handled this very well, as she did

not draw attention to that group, but she did take away their opportunity to participate.

Keeping students engaged in a lesson seems relatively challenging to do, but Leslie did a

great job. She had many different teaching strategies to not only keep her students engaged, but

to also make sure that they were effectively learning. She made sure that all of her students were

participating, especially her english language learner. She has about eight EL students, but one of

them in particular just moved to The United States. His standards were a little bit different than

that of the other students, but it was clear what was expected of him. He knew that Leslie wanted

him to learn the language of the lesson and to focus when she was speaking. She also placed him

next to bilingual students so that they could help him in any way that was possible. To keep the

students engaged, she made sure that everyone had their hands raised, actively participating in

the lesson. She had one student with special needs who qualifies for resources for their ADD. For

these students, Leslie mentioned that she allows them all to have their own “thing”. For example,

to keep the student with ADD engaged, she constantly made sure that he was comprehending

what she was saying. She called on him for multiple questions to keep his attention on her, and

as soon as he started veering off, she would pull him right back in with another question. When a

student started making a repetitive noise, she told him that it was “annoying” and to stop. I like

that she called him out right away, because he immediately stopped and didn’t do it again. He

knew that she still cared about him, but he was doing something that was hindering other
students from effectively learning. Overall, her teaching strategies were very effective in the

classroom and I took away a lot!

With teaching students, comes a lot of assessing their learning. Since I started at

Dominican, I have always thought that assessing students should be a separate column in a

lesson. After listening to Leslie, I realized that she assesses as she goes. This is such a good idea

and something that I will forever have engraved in my brain moving forward. One comment in

regards to assessing student learning that stuck out to me was, “If you don’t know where a lesson

is heading, you can’t assess”. This comment stuck out to me, because it allows her to plan ahead

and think about students who will struggle with this lesson. How will they learn and move on? I

could really tell that the majority of the students understood what are meant and why they were

doing it. Leslie could tell too, because when they walked around to look at the other tables, they

were able to apply their knowledge from their own problem to the model that they were looking

at and interpret it to understand what multiplication fact the other group had. Leslie did mention

that this would be a “new concept” to the students for a couple of days, and that the next day

they would probably be starting back at square one. This is a good note to make, because it is in

a way assessing what the students will be doing in the future.

Overall, Leslie Smith is a wonderful teacher. I had a lot of takeaways that I will definitely

incorporate into my future classroom. For example, Leslie mentioned, “I can tell in one minute if

someone looked at the lesson last night”. This meant a lot to me, because as student teachers we

will be so busy, but it just solidified the fact that we need to plan ahead and do the work that it

takes to be an effective teacher. I loved the gallery walk that the students participated in after the

Area lesson was over. This allowed them to really understand and comprehend problems that had

the same answer even though they were different problems. The students understood the lesson
and Leslie was able to see that by assessing as she went through the lesson. She effectively

taught everyone in the classroom by keeping them engaged. They wanted to listen and follow

through, because Leslie made it so accessible to them. I can tell that Leslie cares about her

students, and that is something that I will take away forever.