Video Blog Two

Just like the first video the amount of planning put in to the actual lesson plan about word problems was extensive. I always appreciate the way he videos really portray that the teacher has an invested interest in their lesson plans. This video was a nice one to watch after we had completed the NAEP project. The idea, that the teacher could not always understand what the student meant without having them directly in front of her, was something we struggled with as well in class. In this instance however, the teacher also found that when asked about their work her students also had difficulty verbalizing what exactly they were trying to show with their work, which is something I found interesting. The students struggled with decoding clear meaning, both in their answers, and also in how they read the problems. This brought the teacher to her goal hoping to have someone be able to pick up one of her student's work and not have to ask questions. I also had an easier time following this teachers initial train of thought than I did in the first video.

I felt that this lesson was extremely well done, and once again I think a lot of the success of the lesson comes down to planning. There is no way to plan for every situation and the lesson obviously did not go exactly as the teacher had originally planned but she was prepared enough to adapt and improve as she went. She made appropriate use of whole, partner, and individual work time. I liked her use of other student work, it felt more appropriate than the first, however, I still am not sure how I feel about using a student who is currently in the class even if they do remain anonymous. I always wonder about the child who realizes the work is their own and how it alters their classroom experience. When other kids look at student work they do not always choose sensitive language. Not because they are trying to be malicious or hurtful, but they're kids. They often say the first thing that comes to their mind. The teacher did a wonderful job of leading discussion and she really helped support students as they explored their reasoning. The students did a great job of identifying areas that should be improved in the work they were analyzing. However, I did notice that students continued to struggle with the word, 'more' often meaning the use of addition, they had a hard time seeing how, 'how much/many more' often means the use of subtraction. Overall, I felt this lesson supported the use of critical and higher order thinking skills.

In the teacher debriefing the teacher noted how she felt the lesson plan went. She addressed how much she felt students had improved in their execution of reading word problems as well as, students simply being able to admit they struggle. Students admitting they have a problem will make it easier to work on specific skills, and finding out where students struggle in the future. She also talked specifically about why she choose the student work she choose. I felt like this just goes back to the idea of planning. She realized the similar problems students commonly had in her classroom and choose to select problems that would allow her to address these issues head on with her class. She also talked about the student misconceptions that remained and recognized that her students still struggled with word decoding in their initial reading of word problems.

Overall I enjoyed this video. To me the video demonstrated a good example of teacher planning and performance. This video was also very appropriate for the information we have been talking about recently in class. It helped me transfer the information about analysis of student work from a standardized testing format to work in the classroom setting and how I might approach word problems with my students. It was easy to say in class if I had the student in front of me... But this video just demonstrated that sometimes even when the student is right in front of you they can not clearly convey their way of thinking.