Jolene Forte

Instructional Rounds 3
June 1st, 2018
Instructional Round Three- Place Value Using the Hundreds Chart

Context: Mrs. Right’s 1st grade class was working on their math skills through an
interactive activity in their workbooks. This activity aligned with the Math CCSS
1.NBT.B.2 Understanding Place Value, the numbers 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90
refer to one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine tens (and 0 ones). Using a
hundred chart, students were given a direction card with certain movements to
determine which number should be shaded in. Once they have shaded in all the
correct numbers moving up and down the hundreds chart, a mystery picture would
appear.

Analysis: During my observational round, these were times Mrs. Right used activate
student engagement during this activity:

1. When not all students were paying attention

a. “I don’t here everyone counting with me”
b. “Let’s do it together!”, Have students repeat after her
i. “Up 40, left 3”
c. “Look at your neighbor, are they on number 64? Help them out”
2. When she used questions to keep students engaged
a. “If we move to the right are we counting by 10s or 1s?”
b. “If we move up are we counting by 10s or 1s?”
c. “How do we know this?”
d. “Do we add or subtract when we go down the number chart?”
e. “Let’s make a prediction about are picture. What do you think it could
be?”
f. “Do frogs eat flies? Do you know think that the picture could maybe be a
fly?”

Mrs. Right used a fun and engaging activity with her students to review their 10s
and 1s on the number chart. The students each had an activity book with the hundreds
chart and were given the task to find the hidden picture. The class started this activity
yesterday, so we got to see the ending of the activity. Mrs. Right placed a card with
arrows (movements) under the document camera. The students where to start on the
previous number they shaded in and find the next number to shade in based on those
movements. The first card placed had four arrows pointing up and five arrows pointing to
the right. She would ask the students what the arrows meant if they were pointing up.
Students would answer going up the number chart by tens. She would then ask students if
that meant they were adding or subtracting from their previous number. As a class, they
would count down by tens while moving up the number chart. When students weren’t
paying attention, or counting with the class, Mrs. Right would have them all start over so
she could hear everyone counting with her. She then asked students what the next step
was. She had students use their fingers to point to the direction they were going to move
next. Mrs. Right asked the students if they were going right, then are they adding or
subtracting by ones or tens? Students would answer and as a class they would count five
ones places to the right. Mrs. Right would ask which number they landed on and waited
for everyone to answer. She then instructed students to look at their neighbors and asked
if they were on the same number as you. Help each other out!

The class repeated this process for about five more cards until their picture was
complete. During the other cards, Mrs. Right noticed students starting to get distracted
and not participating. She used active engagement by having students repeat after her.
When a new card came up she would say, “Repeat after me. Up two! Up two! Left three!
Left three!” Throughout this activity Mrs. Right has students use physical and verbal
engagement.

Problem of Practice: How do you keep your students engaged (active engagement)
throughout the entire lesson?

Reflection:
In order to address this problem of practice, we need to learn and understand
strategies to keep our students actively engaged throughout the entire lesson. In Rodger
W. Bybee’s article, The BSCS 5E Instructional Model: Personal Reflections and
Contemporary Implications, he discusses ways to engage learners by stating, “From a
teaching point of view, asking a question, posing a problem, or presenting a discrepant
event are all examples of strategies to engage learners” (p. 10). In order to keep students
engaged throughout an entire activity, we as teachers need to plan out questions and pose
problems for students to think about. Mrs. Right used questions such as, “If we move to
the right are we counting by 10s or 1s? If we move up are we counting by 10s or 1s? How
do we know this? Do we add or subtract when we go down the number chart?”. These
questions were used to keep students engaged and thinking about the actual content of the
activity (tens and ones). She also asked questions about the overall activity, “Let’s make
a prediction about are picture. What do you think it could be? Do frogs eat flies? Do you
know think that the picture could maybe be a fly?”. These questions were designed to
remind her students why they were completing the task/activity in the first place. This
ties into using student’s motivation in order to keep students engaged.

To successfully engage students throughout an entire activity, we also need to

determine what motivates our students. Eric Banilower, Kim Cohen, Joan Pasley, and Iris
Weiss discuss using motivation to engage students in their article, Effective Science
Instruction: What Does Research Tell Us, by stating, “However well-designed the
instruction, students are unlikely to learn if they are not motivated to learn. Lessons
should ‘hook’ students by addressing something they have wondered about, or can be
induced to wonder about, possibly, but not necessarily, in a real-world context” (p.5). The
activity Mrs. Right class completed had the end goal of finding a hidden picture in the
number chart. Although students were using movements to review their tens and ones
columns, students were motivated to discover the hidden picture. Mrs. Right discovered
her students’ motivation to complete the activity and asked questions based on her
students’ motivation to keep them engaged, these included, “Let’s make a prediction
about are picture. What do you think it could be? Do frogs eat flies? Do you know think
that the picture could maybe be a fly?”. In all content areas, in order to engage students,
motivation and reasoning of an activity must be present. To motivate and engage students
we need to give students ownership of the activity and a reason to want to learn the
content (Wynne p.17). This will give students an understanding of what needs to be done
and why it needs to be done. Tying concepts into real world experiences can also be a
way of doing this.

By using these types of active engagement strategies with students and

understanding student motivation, we can increase students want to learn new concepts
and ideas in all content areas.