Teaching Context:
- School: a high social-economic-status, suburban school district in small, prestigious village.
- Class: small class with majority of causation, Kindergarten students (20 total)
- Arrangement: tables of 4 groups (5 students per table/group)
- Schedule: A.M. & P.M. Kindergarten groups with short schedules
- Available Resources: supplies bought and paid for by school every year, smart board, elmo projector, free printing at will, and many other various resource
Overview of module objectives and activities:
- Unit Summary and Rationale: Students need to understand that collections of money have their own values, as well as identify individual names and values of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. I introduced them to the exploration of these coins, one at a time through various hands-on activities. This helped create an understanding of the meaning behind each, while working from concrete to abstracts concepts of money in coin form. Because this transition from concrete to abstract is so difficult for many Kindergartners, and because the concept of money and its value is difficult for many young children to grasp, I introduced and reinforcing the identification of coin names and values through hands-on exploration, experiences of real world application, and follow-up practice games. The unit was taught with the purpose of helping students understand how they can use money, identifying its various values, manipulating and calculating groups of it accordingly. Also, for the understanding of money values to deepen the conceptualization and use of place value principles.
- Ohio Content Benchmarks, Standards, and Indicators:
- Benchmark: Kindergarten Mathematics, Benchmark D – Determine the value of a collections of coins ; Standard: Number, Number Sense, and Operations; Indicator: Kindergarten Mathematics, Indicator 9 – Identify and state the value of a penny, nickel, and dime;
- Benchmark: Kindergarten Mathematics, Benchmark E – Make change using coins for values up to one dollar; Standard: Number, Number Systems, And Operations; NO Indicator
- Methods used and Rationale:
Large group discussion: I used the beginnings and ends of lessons as a large group explanation and question/answer time, to draw out of students what they already know about the topic (connecting to what we’ve already learned, students BK, and what they know about topic being introduced). This is also the crucial time to make sure to give engaging instructions, clear directions, and expected outcomes (sharing the main point with students). Lastly, students came together to share as I dictated on chart paper, the main points of what we discovered together. Following-up in this way was the best time for students to share with myself and the class something they have learned throughout the whole lesson with the class.
Small group: I had students work within their groups at their designated tables, to do hands on tasks together, coin rubbings on paper, talking about what they’re doing and sharing with at least 2 “friends” something they have discovered or learned in the specific activity, etc.
Individual Assessment and exploration: I work one on one with During center time, students have the freedom to explore the materials used for the unit on money, coins, with magnifying glasses. Also, student do their own coin rubbing with pencil and paper for each coin, to make a print, a duplication of each and observe the details on them.
Overall, using a good balance of student exploration and teacher instruction helped students feel the freedom to ask questions at appropriate times and explore to resolve their curiosities throughout the unit.
Video Clips Combined:
Rationale for choice of teaching clips:
These clips show some of my best efforts to use best practices, taking a difficult topic for Kindergartners to learn into a child-centered exploration approach; yet , I still use some direct instruction for purposes of structure and unity of thought. This class is usually very rowdy, as they are used to a teacher who does not provide consistent structure; therefore, to learn this hard-to-teach content effectively, I felt I must provide a slight direct instructional approach along with normal exploration. Although, I know I could have been more effective (there’s ALWAYS room for growth), I feel if this is close to my best efforts than any critical feedback will be helpful in adjusting my efforts for even better instruction. HOPE YOU ENJOY! 🙂
Summary of Pre-Assessment Findings & Summary of Post-Assessment Findings:
Summary of Pre-Assessment Findings | Summary of Post-Assessment Findings |
Administering pre-assessments, I initially found many students knew names of at least one of the three coins. Some of these coin values, however, were initially only recognized by a little less than half of the class. Also, there were misconceptions that the larger coins were worth more, as students are learning concrete size-identification association with size. Therefore, I realized that for my instructional methods, I needed to focus on understanding values of coins, while helping students reconstruct their understanding of size associated with value when exploring coins. | Administering post-assessments, I found most students who were not able to identify all coin names and values, were now able to identify the majority of these coins and their characteristics. They demonstrated that they had met the unit goals/objectives through their oral descriptions of coins, answering specific and open-ended questions about them, and some through pointing to and/or using body language. I simply changed the students’ – markings to a + if they displayed evidence of learning the names and values on the check sheet, to record whether they have developed understanding to recognize and identify the name and value of each coin. There were a very small percentage that only learned one or two coin names an values; however, all could at least count the pennies, adding their values to other coins. For those few who could not identify each, I worked with them to make sure they understood the coin names and values as well as the differences between each. |