Dear Patty,

Thank you so much for all of your help and guidance this summer! I taught two math lessons and a pre-assessment, and our students created a “robot” using shape blocks for their final product. I think my pre-assessment was useful in discovering which students needed additional support to identify shapes. I think my small group instruction to support those students was a bit too broad however, and I improved my second math lesson to focus on just one Common Core standard and one singular objective. This focus seemed to help my students understand their task and once they understood what they would be doing, many of them succeeded beautifully. My teaching partner’s lessons on measuring also connected nicely to my lessons about shapes, so I think our entire math curriculum had some of the  cohesion and cross-disciplinary learning that we discussed in class this summer.

In the fall, I hope to learn more about using centers or small groups for math work. We touched on this during the summer and I am eager to learn about the ways that I can continue to have students work together in math. I am also curious about the use of technology in the classroom for math lessons. This summer we did have a SmartBoard and a document camera, but those items were primarily used by teachers. I am wondering what ways students can engage with technology to build their math skills. I am curious about this topic because I found IXL to be an incredibly helpful resource for myself as an educator. I would love to know what other items or programs are available to help students learn math. See you in the fall!

All the best,

Jessica Karpinski