Native America Math Learning Centers
Madeline Webb, Samuel Shaler, PatrickSebanc and Katrice Williams
Ivy Tech Community College
INTASC Standard, Description and Rationale
Standard #10: Leadership and Collaboration
The teacher seeks appropriate leadership roles and opportunities to take responsibility for student learning, to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues, other school professionals, and community members to ensure learner growth, and to advance the profession.
Name of Artifact: Multicultural Learning Center Assignment
Date: April, 2013
Course: EDUC 130: Introduction to Multicultural Teaching
Brief Description:For this assignment, we were placed into groups of four and instructed to come up with learning center ideas with a multicultural theme while focusing on specific curriculum areas including math, language arts or science. Our group developed four learning centers focused around the Native American Indians all with math based activities for students to complete.
Rationale:To document my understanding of Standard #10, Leadership and Collaboration, I have selected to include our multicultural learning center project. The assignment demonstrates my ability to collaborate with learners and other professionals to create a lesson plan that will ensure learner growth and to advance myself and my group members in the profession.
Multicultural Thinking and Lesson Plan Form
Title/Unit:Native American Indian Learning Centers – Math Oriented
Lesson time: 15-20 minutes per center – 4 centers
Grade(s): 2-6 (Standards for 4th grade)
State Standard(s)
Center 1 – Color by Subtraction
4.2.1 Understand and use standard algorithms for addition and subtraction.
4.1.2 Identify and write whole numbers up to 1,000,000, given a place-value model.
Center 2 – Dream Catcher and Measurement
4.5.1 Measure length to the nearest quarter-inch, eighth-inch, and millimeter.
4.2.11 Know and use strategies for estimating results of any
whole-number computations.
Center 3 – Counting Story
4.7.9 Decide whether a solution is reasonable in the context
of the original situation.
Center 4 – Native American Population and Reading Tables
4.6.2 Interpret data graphs to answer questions about a situation.
4.7.8 Make precise calculations and check the validity of the results in the context of the problem.
Multicultural Goal(s):
Empathy: Students will develop an understanding of Native American Culture and by working together on the different assignments build a sense of connectedness with their group members.
Equity: Students will be able to demonstrate their strengths and be able to contribute in a group setting to the tasks provided in the learning centers to help all students in the group succeed together.
Esteem: Learning about Native American culture will build a greater understanding of differences amongst the students and how each student is an individual and comes from different back grounds.
Expected Outcomes / Students Will:
- Students will be able to solve subtraction problems to use the answer to decorate a picture
- Students will be able to use different forms of measuring tools to measure twine
- Student will be able to estimate accurately how many feet or beads to make up a certain length
- Students will be able to take in information from a story and interpret the information in the form of a picture story mat
- Students will be able to correctly interpret a table of statistics and answer question
Teaching/Learning Strategies:
Center 1 – Color by Subtraction
Resources Needed:
-Color by number picture
-Crayons, pencils, markers
Directions:
- Student will solve subtraction problems
- Once the problem is solved the student will link the number and color together
- Student will color the picture in the correct colors according to the numbers
Performance Assessments:
- Students will be assessed on their ability to solve the subtraction problems on the worksheet.
Center 2 – Dream Catcher and Measurement
Resources Needed:
-Instruction Card
-a bendable twig about 1 foot long
-a few inches of thin wire
-some twine
-beads with large holes
-a few feathers
-rulers
Directions:
- prepare hoops for students in advance from a twig. To do this, wrap a short length of thin wire around the overlapping ends
- Have students estimate how many of steps they would have to take to measure three feet
- Have students measure 3 feet of twine using their feet
- Have students measure 3 feet of twine using their rulers
- Tie the twine on to the hoop
- Have student estimate how many beads will make up the length of the ruler and write it down on a white board to tell the answer at the end of the class
- Allow student to create their dream catchers using the beads feathers and twine
Performance Assessments:
- Students will be assessed on their ability to estimate and measure lengths of twine and beads
Center 3 – Counting Story
Resources Needed:
-Harvest Time Math Story Mat
-Wampanoag Story
-Counters or beans
-Paper to write their own math stories
-Pencils
Directions:
- Give each student their own Harvest Time Math Story Mat
- Read the Wampanoag story to the students
- Allow the students to compare their mats
- Students will then create their own math story and share with group members
Performance Assessment
- Assessment will be based off the students ability to correctly place the number of beans or counters in the correct positions according to the story
Center 4 – Native American Population and Reading Tables
Resources Needed:
-Table of Native American populations across the different states
-Worksheet
Directions
- Students will read the information given to them in the table
- Students will use their ability to read the table to correctly answer the questions on the worksheet about Native American Populations across the US.
Performance Assessments
- Student correctly answers the questions on the worksheet
Differentiation
All of the centers can be made easier or harder by adding to the center or simplifying the mathematical problems. In center one the subtraction problems can be simplified to only using ones or tens to subtract and harder by making the subtraction problems using more steps. Center two can be made more difficult by adding some history and getting the students to write about the significance of the dream catcher. Center 3 can be made more difficult by having larger numbers in the story or making sure the student’s stories are more difficult. It can also be simplified to just the activity and not include the writing section. Finally center 4 can be made simpler by not having as many questions or harder by making the students use other abilities to answer the questions from the table.
Reflection
The learning center our group created is easy to follow and simple for the students to be able to understand in a short period of time. It can be broken down to one activity per day or broken into four 20 minutes sessions for a learning center tie that would take roughly an hour and a half to complete in one day. I think personally breaking them into a activity per day will allow the students more tie to be more creative in their stories and decorating their dream catches which might make what they learned more solidified in their brains. The activities are fun and easy and are a good way to reinforce what the children would have learned about American History and Native American history in their social studies class while also focusing on math to learn.
/ String a few more beads on the twine and then wrap the twine around the far side of the hoop. Repeat until you have an interesting webbing design.
/ Tie a short length of twine on the hoop. String a bead or two on it and then tie a feather onto the end. Repeat this a few times (2 or 3 hanging feather strings look nice). Hang the dream catcher near your bed!
DIRECTIONS:
The table on this sheet shows the ten states with the largest populations of Native Americans. Study the table carefully. Use the table to help you complete each statement or answer each question below. Write on the line the word or number that best completes each statement.
STATES WITH LARGEST POPULATIONS OF NATIVE AMERICANS
State / Estimated Population / State / Estimated PopulationAlaska / 100,000 / New York / 76,000
Arizona / 256,000 / North Carolina / 98,000
California / 309,000 / Oklahoma / 263,000
Michigan / 60,000 / Texas / 96,000
New Mexico / 163,000 / Washington / 103,000
Name______
- The state with the largest population of Native Americans is ______
- How many states have Native American populations of at least 100,000 but fewer than and 200,000?
______
- How many states on the table have populations of Native Americans under
100,000? ______Those states are ______.
- The state with the fifth largest population of Native Americans is ______.
- Arizona has fewer Native Americans than Oklahoma has. How many fewer Native Americans does Arizona have? ______
- The Native American population difference between ______and
______is about 20,000 people.
- The states with populations of Native Americans between 200,000 and 300,000 are
______.
- How many more Native Americans live in New Mexico than live in Washington? ______
- The answer to question 8 is the same as the total Native American population for the state of
______.
- Add up all the populations in the table. The total Native American population for the ten states is ______.