Guided Math Reflection

Reflection for Week Ten During guided math this week I realized just how big of a gap there is between the higher level learners and the lower level learners in my classroom. Even though I have spent extra time working with the lower level students, they receive academic assistance in the classroom on Fridays, and they receive small group lessons with the math tutor every Wednesday, having the opportunity to work with them daily during guided math put a different perspective on just how much this group of students struggle academically. These students have a difficult time retaining the information they are taught. For example, we have been working on even and odd numbers since the first day of school. During our unit review on the first day of guided math, these students could not decide if a number was even or odd. Once I provided them with an example and reminded them of the methods to use to prove …show more content…
The same thing occurred when reviewing standard form and expanded form. Once they were given an example they were able to distinguish between standard and expanded form and write numbers in both forms without any hesitation. This really baffled me and bothered me. I feel like these students need all my time during guided math even though that is not possible, since I have three additional groups to see each day. Throughout the week I tried to come up with memorable methods to teach this group of students. When I introduced double facts to the lowest level of students, I used a hand held mirror. Each student was given a mirror and asked to look into it. What did they see? They saw themselves, but this was an example of how they doubled. Next, I asked them to hold up one finger in front of the mirror. One of their fingers plus the finger in the mirror was a total of two fingers with the double fact being one plus one. We continued until we used all of our fingers to practice the double facts. The following day students