Learning Walk
While going on my learning walk, I observed the first 5th grade teacher solving word problems that involved converting capacity. Every student had a sheet and all students were engaged. This part of the lesson was whole group and the teacher began by asking a volunteer to read the question aloud. The class then identified key words and determined a strategy to solve. For this group the ability to come up with a plan was a challenge. The teacher attempted to question and walk students through the process, but only a few caught on. As I was leaving the room, the class was about to complete another question with the same level of complexity. During my visit there was also a special educator in the room who rotated throughout the room working with her students. The next two rooms I visited were eerily similar. It was evident both teachers planned together, and used the same flip chart. In their rooms, these 5th grade teachers were discussing capacity as well but were using their gallon man to answer basic conversion questions. When I came into the room students were already practicing through rotations. Each teacher had their classes rotation chart posted on a flip chart and each teacher was working with a small group. A second and third group was working independently. One on Dreambox and the other an application word problem. In both classes there was no timer to signal the end of a rotation. In the last room that I was in there was no wrap up. The announcements came on and students scurried to get ready to pack up while the teacher talked over them.
To improve on my instruction I would include tiered/ leveled questions. Once students could master an easier question I would then move to more multi-layered questions. I would also consider including the word problems in some sort of rotation activity where student had to solve at one station, evaluate work at another, and work on spiral review at a third. From the experiences in the other two classes I would improve my instruction by including smoother transitions when doing rotations. I would also end my class period about five minutes earlier so that we could wrap up the lesson and have enough time to complete wrap up activities.