July 27th – Book Study Chapter 6

It’s Sunday, so it’s time for the next chapter in the book study for Guided Math in Action by Dr. Nicki Newton. 

Chapter 6: A Framework for Guided Math Lessons contains the information teachers need when planning and executing small group math instruction. Dr. Nicki does a great job of breaking down the lesson into part.

Before the lesson: Make sure to collect enough data from different assessments/observations to decide what the point of intervention is.  Your guided math lessons will not be as effective if you do not use data to inform your groupings and focus.  Once you have your plan of action, you are ready to plan for your guided math group. Dr. Nicki believes that your guided math lesson should follow these steps:

1.Mini-lesson presented by the teacher based on your targeted skill

•Hook the students

•Emphasize vocabulary

•Take comments

•Ask questions

2.Focus presented by the teacher for the lesson

•Today we will….

3.Learning expectations outlined by the teacher

•You will learn how to…

•You will be practicing…

4.Modeling/Demonstrating of the math concept by the teacher

•Check for understanding

5.Discussion and practice of the math by the students

•Group, partner, or alone

6.Monitoring/Note-taking by the teacher as students practice

•Listen to conversations

•Watch students work

7.Debrief of the lesson by the group

•Summarize major takeaways

•Highlight main points

•Discuss tricky parts

8.Next steps discussed including math centers or homework

Dr. Nicki then went into how to evaluating your guided math lessons through reflection.  During a guided math lesson you should not only be taking notes on what the students are doing and saying, but also on the level of student engagement. 

Questions 1 & 2: Last year, I just wrote my guided math lesson plans into my lesson plans for the entire day, but this was never enough room.  I used Dr. Nicki’s parts of a guided math lesson to create a new guided math lesson plan template.  I am able to fit the lesson plans for all 4 groups on one page (front and back).  If you’re interested in this template, click on the picture to download it.

Question 3: My school focuses on teaching multiple methods.  We often spend one day on each method and show the methods side-by-side.

Build It:

The first method that we usually teach is a concrete, hands-on lesson using base-ten blocks, manipulatives, coins, clocks, etc. 

Draw It:

The second method is Draw It.  This is when we teach the students how to do the pictorial representation of the concrete method.  I explicitly teach my students how to neatly, yet quickly, draw what we just built.

Write It:

This is when I teach students the algorithms and other written methods.

I really like this method of teaching math because it starts with the concrete and gradually builds up to the abstract level.  Students learn why the algorithm works by showing it side-by-side with the concrete or pictorial method.  My students are able to select the method(s) that works best for them.  Many of my second graders prefer the Draw It method, and that’s fine.  They are able to use this method on any test including state tests.   As they get more comfortable with the algorithms, they will use the pictorial representation less frequently. 

Make sure to head to Courtney and Sarah’s blog, Adventures in Guided Math, to enter the giveaway for a copy of Problem Solving with Math Models by Dr. Nicki. 

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