Zahra teaches a combined Grade 1/2 class. Her Grade 1s have been doing addition and subtraction and her Grade 2s have been learning about making equal groups leading up to multiplication. Drawing on a problem she had done with a previous class, Zahra decided to do an activity involving birthday candles on a cake for the PLC lesson study.
For her minds on she used magnets and a picture of a cake to have the students represent different ways to put 6 (and then 12) candles on a cake. She recorded their thinking beside the cake on the dry erase board:
Because it is a combined Grade 1/2 Class Zahra chose to do a parallel task type question. However, instead of letting the students choose what task, she assigned one for each grade. They now had to find different ways to put candles on a birthday cake:
When the students were done it was recess time, and as they headed out to play, the teachers at the lesson study headed out into the hall to Bansho the work that was done. We chose to do this on our own and not with the children only so that we could have more time to talk about the work that we were noticing, and see the progression of strategies that the students used. Here is a picture of what the finished Bansho looked like:
As a group, it was easy to put the strategies at the outer most ends of the Bansho down. They were very clear in what they had done, and where it was along the spectrum of strategies. However, where we had some of the best professional dialogue was around what pieces went into the middle of the Bansho and why. We found ourselves really looking at what was on the paper and really comparing it to other examples of work. We looked for what was similar and what was different in pieces. As well, we discussed what we considered more sophisticated, and what was not as sophisticated and why. We also found ourselves really looking at the math and not the right answer. While yes, the right answer is part of the bigger picture, knowing how they got there and being able to work that out is almost a bigger part of the picture. After much discussion here are our final strategies that were decided upon:
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| Used counters - not yet able to move past the manipulative onto paper |
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| This strategy was to draw pictures to represent the candles. |
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| Pictures and numbers to "talk" about what the pictures mean. |
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| Making Equal Groups (not always the correct number as per the question, but equal groups) |
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| Used pictures, number and started to use the terms "groups of" The group decided to call this "Making Groups With Proof" |
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| Multiplication |
What we found interesting was that within the multiplication group we had several different "styles" of multiplication. Here are some of the "styles"
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| Making Arrays (Grade 2 expectation) |
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| Using "groups of" as well as repeated addition and a multiplication sentence. |
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| Groups, Addition and Multiplication |
A great morning filled with professional dialogue, discussion and idea sharing. Thanks to all who participated.
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