For our lesson study, my group is choosing to focus on Measurement in a Kindergarten class. We had a hard time coming up with a higher level task when we were talking during today's workshop time, but this article gave me some good incite. Instead of teaching the students how to use a ruler to measure if something is "shorter" or "longer" I could make the task higher level by giving them multiple tools to measure with and allowing them to choose the best-fit tool for the job. That way, the focus is on measurement, not just learning to use a ruler.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Learning About Measurement
We talked in class today about the trend of poor scoring for US students when it comes to measurement. In particular, as mentioned in the Thompson and Preston article, Measurement in the Middle Grades, student scores are lowest on constructed response questions that involve students to explain their reasoning. When I read this I immediately thought of the task level page 116 from the 5 Practices Book that determines what constitutes a lower or higher level task. If students are unable to explain their thinking, or actually understand the mathematical content behind the measurement concept being tested, does that mean schools are presenting them with more lower level tasks that lack connections or procedure building? We have spent so much time discussing the benefits of providing students with higher level tasks, but this is actual proof of why it is so important for students to build those connections and come up with procedures on their own. The article stated that, “Teachers focus on low-level knowledge and skills with little effort to help students develop conceptual understanding or engage in complex problem solving." In thinking of my own schooling I can remember being given a ruler and a worksheet in which I had to use a specific tool to measure an object. While that did teach me how to use a ruler, I am not sure what it actually taught me about measurement.
For our lesson study, my group is choosing to focus on Measurement in a Kindergarten class. We had a hard time coming up with a higher level task when we were talking during today's workshop time, but this article gave me some good incite. Instead of teaching the students how to use a ruler to measure if something is "shorter" or "longer" I could make the task higher level by giving them multiple tools to measure with and allowing them to choose the best-fit tool for the job. That way, the focus is on measurement, not just learning to use a ruler.
For our lesson study, my group is choosing to focus on Measurement in a Kindergarten class. We had a hard time coming up with a higher level task when we were talking during today's workshop time, but this article gave me some good incite. Instead of teaching the students how to use a ruler to measure if something is "shorter" or "longer" I could make the task higher level by giving them multiple tools to measure with and allowing them to choose the best-fit tool for the job. That way, the focus is on measurement, not just learning to use a ruler.
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I can also relate a lot of the topics discussed in our class in relation to measurement in the elementary grades. Bottom line is these kids aren’t getting enough experience with it. I feel like it is so easy to teach in real-world situations like baking, or building something. According to the Thompson & Preston article, race is one of the biggest gaps in the topics of measurement between minorities and white students (2004). I find this statement interesting. I could see it linked to language if the minority students’ parents do not have English as a first language; they might not receive as much help as the white kids do. However, in my placement, I have not really seen this because cohesively as a class they all struggle with measurement. I actually had the privilege of teaching an integrative science and mathematics lesson first semester on measurement. I taught the difference between inches and centimeters and the students went on a measuring scavenger hunt to find items that matched specific lengths. The students really struggled with the concept of starting the measuring at zero. I tried to stress this because I knew they wouldn’t understand measuring from any given point because they did not understand the intervals. I found that most students didn’t measure from zero and just looked at the number the object reached and that’s how they read length. I also know that the instructive I gave them on measurement is one of the only lessons they had experience with it topic this year. My MT told me, it isn’t something that usually gets covered so that’s why she had me do a lesson on it. I wish this wasn’t the case, and if I would have thought more critically about the lesson I was teaching I wish I had taught the intervals so the students could measure from any given point on the ruler to find the accurate length.
ReplyDeleteLike Christy, I have to say the biggest problem with measurement in elementary school is that students don't have enough experience with it. This is problematic because then when students have to deal with more difficult and abstract measurement problems in high school they will not know what to do or where to start. Caitlin mentioned and I agree completely with her that we have talked a lot in class about making high level tasks out of low level tasks and that it is better for students and their learning to do more high level tasks, but this article really reinforces WHY as teachers we need to do this. Also like Caitlin, I can definitely remember being given different math tools (rulers, compasses, protractors, etc.) and I was expected to be able to complete the worksheet without a whole lot of instruction. Most of the tasks on the sheet would be considered low level tasks so they didn’t require a lot of instruction anyway in order to complete them satisfactorily.
ReplyDeleteThe only type of measurement I have seen in my placement has been when they build “towers” out of unifix cubes, my MT will say this is 12 units long. Because measurement hasn’t been a big focus in my classroom, my lesson study group has decided to explore measurement in the K/1 setting. We are going to help students explore how to measure large objects using a smaller object as the base unit of 1. This will be fun work designing a high level task with a topic that can be very fun for students to explore. I will have to keep in mind the scaffolding that we are going to be laying for the students’ futures.