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Chelsea Mueller

ELD 375: Dr. Bulgar

March 1, 2013Field Report #2

Mr. Jones came up with a math lesson about multiplication for February 26, 2013. The

teacher hoped that the students would gain knowledge of how to multiply three numbers and use

the associative property of multiplication. Mr. Jones also wanted the students to be able to use

their five step process to help them solve multiplication word problems. The teacher found this

lesson by using enVision math which is a teacher resource. The problems from enVision are used

through the internet on the SmartBoard. Multiplication is topic six in enVision and this happens

to be the last lesson from this topic.

Mr. Jones planned on starting off the lesson by reminding the students about the five step

process. This process is based off of using a hand diagram with each finger representing a step.

The steps are, starting from the pinky, what are the facts, what is the question, what can you

eliminate, write a fill-in answer sentence (ring on the ring finger), choose a strategy and solve,

and does the answer make sense. After the class reviewed this process Mr. Jones wanted to do a

multiplication problem using this method. Once the class is done going over that problem they

will do a quilt problem which was a pre-assessment for their test. This is a problem with a

picture of a quilt and the students needed to figure out how many blocks there were by using

multiplication. Next, they would be instructed to see what three numbers multiplied together

would get the same answer. After the quilt problem, the students would look at the enVision

website on the SmartBoard. This site would go over the problem as well as explaining the

associative property to the students.

Mr. Jones class is based off of groups and I picked Table 5 to observe. This group

consisted of four students, Shane, Nishanth, Neeharika, and Shriya. Throughout the lesson the

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students worked individually, but went over the problems as a class. When the lesson started and

Mr. Jones started asking questions about the five step process, Shane immediately started raising

his hand to answer. When Mr. Jones handed out the handout with the multiplication problem on

it to do the five step process Shane started as soon as he got his paper. Neeharika on the other

hand just looked over to see what Shane was doing. She constantly did this throughout the

problem to see how to do it. Each student at the table did the problem in a different way. This

showed me that there was no specific way that the students learned multiplication. They all knew

how to multiply but used different ways that suited how they wanted to solve the problem. The

question on the worksheet was

Dr. Welborn eats 9 bowls of Fruit Loops a day. He does this for 4 days. Mr. Jones eats 5

bowls ofFruit Loops a day. He does this for 8 days. Who eats the most Fruit Loops?

Shriya wrote out the important information and then saw to multiply the two numbers that were

in the problem depending on the teachers name. She then wrote out each teachers name and the

amount and simply circled who ate the most. Nishanth created a chart with columns saying Dr.

Welborn and Mr. Jones. In each row he wrote how much they ate, for example 9 for 1, 18 for 2,

and so on were all listed in Dr. Welborns column. In this way he did not write out the actual

multiplication he simply filled it in the chart. Shane created a chart as well but his was different.

His chart had columns for each teacher, but then in the columns he wrote out the multiplication

problems. Instead of doing 9*4 write away, he factored the problem (3*2)*(3*2)=36. Neeharika

just copied what Shane wrote. After seeing this it showed me that each child did their problems

in a unique way and are on different levels on learning math. Next, the students worked on the

quilt problem. The students each did this in different ways as well. Shane counted that there

were 4 columns and 6 rows and then multiplied to get 24, as well as Neeharika and Nishanth.

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Shriya counted how many blocks there were and tried to figure it out by counting how many of

each color there were. She did not realize that you could just do 6*4 until they went over the

problem. The students then had to split up the problem, so that you could multiply 3 numbers to

get 24. Shane and Nishanth got 2*2*6 right away and were able to explain their answers. After

the quilt problem the students just watched the enVision lesson on the board.

All of the problems that were done were real life problems which helped the students talk

about them. The students could connect with these problems because the topics were relatable.

At first there was no conversation because the work was independent, but when Mr. Jones asked

for explanations Shane and Nishanth were able to raise their hands and back up their answers

with how they solved the problems. When the students were told to try to figure out how to get

24 by multiplying three numbers the students looked to me for help. I told them they needed to

think about the different ways they could figure it out before they could ask me. Shane started to

talk about factors and that is how he figured out the problem. After he got the answer he started

to explain his answer to Nishanth, who then got the same answer.

The lesson did go as Mr. Jones planned. First, he drew the diagram of the hand on the

board and noted that you needed to start at the pinky. Then as a class they went over the diagram

and filled it out. Next, they worked on the fruit loop multiplication problem to go along with the

five step process. Then Mr. Jones gave out the quilt problem and had the students solve it. He

explained about how numbers are related from help with kid explanations. Mr. Jones talked

about factors and brought up how prime numbers do not have any factors besides one and itself.

Next, he used enVision and showed the students the quilt problem again and brought up the

associative property.

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Mr. Jones thought that the lesson was alright. He succeeded because it was clear that the

students were able to complete the problem solving process. The students also understand

decoding which will help them later on in math. He realized that the lesson missed because

solving the problems is difficult for some. A few of the students ended up doing addition instead

of multiplication. The students may be able to get the information they need, they just do not

know exactly what to do with it. Around 95% of the students did show development of skills and

understanding, and met the objective.

Mr. Jones is going to continue this lesson in a few ways. First, the students homework

for the night is going to go along with using multiplication and the associative property. The next

day he is going to give them morning work with using three factors to complete multiplication.

During math, he is going to give them a review sheet on the topic so that the students can get

more practice. Finally, multiplication will also be on the test to conclude this topic and to make

sure that the students fully understand it.