Bilangino5

EDC 452 Assessment Journal This semester I returned to my site at a fourth grade classroom at West Kingston Elementary School. The students were learning, as well as practicing, their long division. As the lesson began I knew that this was a topic the students were revisiting, as the teacher had definitely taught this process before. The teacher stood in front of the class and asked the students to take out their whiteboards. She proceeded to write four long division problems on the board. The first problem was used as an example to explain the process to complete long division problems. She then asked the students to help her complete the other three problems. As the students volunteered, she aided them by offering suggestions on how to solve each of the problems. This part of the assessment seemed to be useful in supporting the students understanding of the process. When the class had completed this part of the lesson, the teacher distributed a worksheet to the class with four more long division problems. She asked for the students to solve the problems individually. However, the teacher supported this assignment by calling groups of students to the back table, asking them to bring their worksheet and whiteboard. The class was separated into four different groups, and the teacher allowed each group to talk out the problem amongst themselves. When she saw a student struggling she offered hints to help them in the process. This seemed to be helpful for the first two groups especially because they were offered further support and instruction before continuing their worksheet; however I help a few students in the last two groups because they had seemed to be struggling with the process. If this had been my class, I might have spilt the class into only two groups, so that the students would have enough time to work in a group before completing the worksheet on their own. After all the students had a chance to work with a group, the teacher wrote all four problems on the board once again and asked the class to volunteer their answers, as well as, how they got them. I think this process was extremely effective because she stressed that the students were expected to write out the whole process and while it was a long process, it would make the problem a lot easier. However, I do feel the teacher should have stressed the importance of writing out the entire process from the beginning of the lesson, not just during the review portion of the lesson. Finally, the teacher gave the class a worksheet on long division for homework. I asked the teacher what she planned on doing with the homework when the children brought it back to school and she informed me that she planned to review it as a class. However, she did expect when a problem was incorrect the student would mark it wrong, along with writing the correct procedure. She would then record the grades in her grade book. I predict that this is an effective method because I feel that the teacher gave a lot of opportunities for the students to succeed in their homework, and this worksheet would be a great way for the teacher to see if each students could complete the long division problems individually.